What's the worst (non-MLP) fanfic you've ever read? · 8:15pm Jun 27th, 2017
I ask for two reasons:
* While unsuccessfully trying to backtrack an incoming link on Auk-ward..., I found a thread on SpaceBattles in which people were discussing exactly that topic. And upon finding that thread, I had what I thought was the perfectly natural reaction: I read the entire thing to see how many times I appeared on it.
(None. At least for now, because it wouldn't completely surprise me if someone put an entry up just because I'd said something. There are a couple of ponyfics mentioned, though.)
* I'm currently running on about three hours of sleep, which is both why I'm not going to do any real writing today -- I know when I'm too tired to produce anything coherent and yes, go ahead and insert your own jokes here, plus sorry about the CDA delay -- and am no longer capable of recognizing that hosting a blog post thread on this topic may not be the best idea.
Bring up any story (or stories) you like, as long as it's a fic and not pony-related. Talking about why it's so bad is fine. Links are okay, but please indicate NSFW material.
Welcome to the Hall Of Shame.
I suppose The Eye of Argon doesn't count? It isn't directly Conan fanfic, but the influences are like knives to the eyes.
The worst I ever read all the way through was a Star Trek fic , but I can't remember the name.
There's a Harry Potter (I think) that is notoriously bad. Luckily, I can't remember the name of it.
IRL, Parallel Lies by Ridley Pierson is awful, at least in terms of factual information ... I got to the point where I was having more fun finding the factual errors than following along with the plot.
Taught me a valuable lesson about doing research, though.
Eeeh. Tough call. I read A LOT of fanfiction and before Fimfiction and pony (which keeps the signal-to-noise ratio quite high), I read a lot of Naruto on Fanfiction.
Again, I tend to naturally avoid the unreadable or ridiculous assinine premised...
So I guess the one I would choose would be one story (I don't care to remember the name) that started off reasonably well, with a premise of jutsu-less Naruto (for reasons never explained) set some time after the series (Sakura was Hokage, for some reason) fighting some new bad guys.
It proceeded to then slowly tank and then nose-dise out right into the worst form of torture porn. With actual, genuine baby-eating. Naruto escaped with some girl ninja dn Konahomaru out of the place they'd started in captured to find the entire of the Sand village had been destroyed by this army.
Oh, I have to mention the name of the army - just once - because it was practically a personal insult - the army of the red spear. Now, I know the author would have had no idea, and it is something that is perhaps pretty generic-sounding, but, for me, BEING from the actual Army Of The Red Spear (the Aotrs in "Aotrs Commander" and "Aotrs Shipyards" - my actual day-job, y'know) - a organisation of evil high-tech, high-magic space-liches who culture and society is founded on professionalism and efficiency - you can perhaps have some understanding of how I might not have found the following very... Flattering, to say the least.
Yeah, the whole Sand village, apparently without anyone noticing. Naruto found some orphans to make some sort of last stand, bonked the ninja girl and they went charging in.
At some point around here, the author wanted to make sure that Naruto was not going get any help, so we had a scene where these army dudes assassinated Sakura the Hokage by some sort of touch-and-you-disintegrate-poison.
Long-story short, the last stand fails, they are captured (except Konahomura, who is mortally wounded and raped by the army guys and had to be mercy-killed by Naruto and then Naruto and the ninja girl were in the process of being torutured and cruified (with the army guys proceed to kill and eat (and possibly rape, I thankfully forget) the remaining orphans. (See why I found the name a little bit offensive?)
I would have stopped reading there, but the author never updated the story again after that (perhaps not surprisingly).
And this went from okay to this level of crap in maybe two or three chapters (had it not, I would have stopped before even fraction of this had gone on). I imagie they wrote themselves into a corner and probably had bad reviews (I didn't even bother with one, I only bother with negative reviews if a story was actually had promise enough to warrent my time to offer come critism).
I think that has to take the biscuit, because it was not grammatically poorly written, and the first few chapters were okay - and then this sudden and completely bizarre drop into utter crap for no reason.
To this day, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
In whole or in part? I've read My Immortal in it's entirety. That was pretty bad.
If in part counts, then I will go with Fifty Shades of Gray.
I also recall a particularly horrible "crossover" between DBZ and the Diary of Anne Frank. Goku kills Hitler, and he and Anne live happily ever after. I am not making that up. That one might well be the worst.
Edit: This may not count, but I recall an essay on slash fics I once read. One of the author's points was that slashfic writers often don't get anatomy. He specifically referenced a Harry Potter fic where Ron had a twenty inch penis. A plot point was that he felt small, as Draco's was apparently twice as big.
That's easy: none. Before pony I didn't read fanfiction. (Okay technically I read a trio of Star Trek stories that began their lives as fanfiction. But since by the time I read them they were published in a paperback anthology I don't think they counted as fanfiction anymore.)
Estee, as long as you've got at least a loose grasp on grammar and don't make too many spelling errors, you'll be miles ahead of the 'bad' fic. Your style might not be to everyone's taste, but it's fairly quality work.
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That'll be My Immortal. Never read it myself but it's definitely famous for being really, really set-the-tone-for-awful-fanfic-everywhere bad.
Truly bad fanfic... I fear is mostly the mark of the inexperienced - practically unreadable layouts/grammar, constant misspelling or using the wrong words, dreadful pacing and bad characterisations.
I don't read smut, so I can't contribute anything there, but I'd imagine that it's the same principle except with more unecessary bodily fluids.
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If you want Horrible Harry fics, I saw one mentioned on the SpaceBattles thread and was morbidly curious enough to glance at its TVTropes page. Behold the shorthand summary which is all you should probably ever read of Imma Wiserd.
Some troll stories are written with dedication.
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Like weapons of sharpness to the orbs of vision, I think. Or something of that nature, anyway, I'm not gonna look up the fic to correct my attempt at its style.
Anyway, do fics I've only read via MSTing count? One particularly... interesting one comes to mind: it had a long appendix that, among other things, attempted to explain Japanese culture and all the references the author made throughout the fic. I'm not sure it's the absolute worst I've read (and it definitely doesn't top some of the examples others have already given), but it left the largest impression.
Anything by ComicsNix — the guy is a savant when it comes to trollfics — but my favourite has to be Love Beyond Circuits, Love Beyond Flesh (Star Wars/Transformers, NSFW, NSFL). It’s a literal masterpiece par excellence.
Since Harry Potter keeps coming up, it would be remiss of me not to mention HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (aka Thirty Hs), which I have, in fact, read. That one is completely insane, although it might not be entirely accurate to call it bad.
I only have read fan fics here & 1632 (at Baen Books). They're like Equestria Daily & screen submissions.
The worst I've ever read was the Ghormengast trilogy. Kept reading it because I couldn't believe something that hyped could be that lame. It could & it was.
My friend has a physical copy of a exceedingly trite and amateur werewolf novel that's a shitty prequel to Twilight.
Can't remember the name or the author but I had a lot of fun reading it aloud to a drunken room of friends.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I've read a lot worse in the shock/gore fic category, but nothing as routinely frustrating as Yudkowski's broke-brained magnum opus.
You know it's going to be a messy ride when the author has clear Opinions about the worldbuilding, but self-admittedly has never even read the source material and is basing his whole idea of it off of other fanfics....
Halflife: Fulllife Consequences
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2945837/1/Halflife-Fulllife-Consequences
The King of them All...
My Immortal.
Why, internet, why?
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The movie was better.
Read at your own risk:
https://m.fanfiction.net/s/5776829/1/Hagrid-and-Hedwig
Hopefully none of mine were on the list...
Can't think of any I've read that were rancidly bad.,..
Back when I was but a little idiot- er, girl, I read some truly awful NC-17/X rated stuff.
I remember one that was Ash/Kairi and some other pairing and the one thing I took away from it is that whatever fluids the author was describing, I just don't want to remember.
But one of the bad ones was a YuGiOh fanfic on Mediaminer (does that date me? It was back in middle school, so I dunno). It was a Kaiba/Joey romance fic and it was genuinely terrible. Even as I was reading it I was like "Good grief this is bad".
OOC all over the place (especially Kaiba), shameless author insert (you know, those ones where the character is their author name and they're now in the group like they were always meant to be), fucking abysmal rom-com drama shit. And best of all was one chapter straight up ripping off the scene in the Sailor Moon Super S movie where Chibiusa asks Usagi about kisses. Like LINE FOR LINE RIPPED OFF. And who played Chibiusa and Usagi in that scene? KAIBA AND THE AUTHOR INSERT. And awful sex scenes. Can't forget those.
Fuck was that bad.
There is other, non-MLP fanfic?
The worst fanfic... okay, there are a couple of classifications I would pick.
The worst In-Universe fanfic I have ever read: Chowderclef, the result of a particularly virulent virus getting into the Foundation's records and scrambling them beyond all recognition. This doesn't quite count, though, because it was intentionally horrible on the part of the (meta)writer.
The worst of the worst would be what Potterverse fanwriters refer to simply as 'LMM' - and I refuse to call it by name, lest it summon up the demon - which is a combination of bad writing, bad characterization, bad grammar, bad sex, bad punctuation, and bad writing. It's the sort of thing which causes writers like me to simply shriek in despair.
The best in-universe bad fanfic I've ever seen written - as it were - is Equestria: A History Revealed, which is so unbelievable that it wraps around to comedic genius, even in-universe. I know you asked for non-MLP works, but this deserves a gold medal anyway.
But if you want a stinker which isn't quite so bad as to cause your brain cells to try and escape through anvil, hammer and stirrup, I suggest Anne Rice's Christ the Lord series, which simply must be seen to be believed.
(50 Shades of Grey is not a part of this list, because A. I haven't read it, and B. its source material is equally dire.)
Ah... there is also this. Which, although the page is SFW, everything listed therein is not. Most are also Not Safe for Brain, Not Safe for Soul, and Not Safe for Life. Peruse at your own risk.
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Questions are raised by this.
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That's the one I couldn't remember the name of!
Now to proceed to not read it again.
You know what? Who needs Cynicism? Fanfiction is an easy target anyway.
The best story I've ever read was a MLP story called Contraptionalogy (though if I could count the entire Triptych Continuum together as one story I would and it would get this slot) where Applejack and the rest of the cast are turned into Mad Scientists. It's a first person story about Applejack, FWI. It's hilarious, and then it gets to some really sweet parts later that make you really think.
I'm also really fond of a crossover between Miracolous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir and The Avengers, because blending a magical girls anime and the MCU into one story without making either side look out of place or unintelligent is really impressive.
I've hardly read any fanfiction other than MLP fanfiction. The worst non-MLP fanfic I've ever read is probably a Harry Potter fanfic I followed from TV tropes soley on the basis of a "Are you fucking Sirius?" pun about sex ed in the Potterverse.
Either that or Take Me Into Your Ark, a Bible fanfic which begins thusly:
Actually, wait, no, I take that back.
The worst fanfic I've ever read is the Book of Mormon.
Like what everyone here said, My Immortal from Harry Potter. I read like... 5? chapters of it before nearly wanting to break my own neck.
Tbh I'd rather talk about the best fanfic I've ever read- even more than the original material. Arc of Sacrifices . It's really dark (and Harry/Draco pairing for some of you that have dislike to those), but it's really, really good.
Have been wanting to find someone to read this gem of a fic with but I haven't found anyone sad :(
The countless Yu-Gi-Oh GX fics where the premise is 'What if Jaden had a sibling who definitely isn't me?' deserve a mention. They're the pinnacle of self-insert wish-fulfilment. They all follow the stations of the canon, just replacing important characters like Syrus or Chazz with their OC. Off the top of my head the worst one I can think of is 'Supreme King Jaden', where not only is the OC a complete and utter Pity Sue, but there's a bunch of other random OCs whose sole purpose is to cater to him.
The Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic A Sorceror, A Demon, and Emeralds. My curiosity got the better of me. Don't let the same happen to you.
The second-worst was one where the author seemed to have left too much of the story in his head. The bright side was that this at least made the story short. I forget what it was called. I mostly -- mostly -- stuck to NetRaptor's (that is, K.M..., maiden name Hollar, since there's at least one more person by that name on the net) works, though, and she didn't write either of these.
I think I've generally got the good sense to recognize when I'm reading a really terrible work and stop reading it before it can leave an impression, though I've stuck with lots of horridly mediocre stories that just made me regret wasting my time.
So the only "bad" fanfics I've ever read to conclusion, or even past a few chapters, are the obvious troll fics. Thirty Hs, Half Life:Full Life Consequences, and Doom: Reprecussions of Evil are the ones that spring to mind. Troll fics I can enjoy because that's not really the author failing, there's still art there that you can appreciate. But then, if you try to fail and you succeed at it, you didn't really fail.
I'm not sure if it's the worst I've ever read (whatever that might be, I've almost certainly deliberately forgotten - although chances are high it was based on The Movie We Don't Talk About), but I'd like to take the opportunity to vent about a StarCraft fanfic I read recently, which I shall not link to for the protection of the guilty (literally).
The thing was really well-written. Like, professional-standard well-written. Except where it wasn't. Sometimes, it just lost it and dropped to 'stark raving lunatic' writing standards. Uncapitalised 'I's, total lack of punctuation, the works. And it stayed like that for a paragraph or two, then went right back up to 'professional'. It was a really weird experience, and I should have caught on when the author's notes (hereafter A/Ns) started appearing, because they barely made it to 'stark raving lunatic'. But I'm possibly the densest reader to ever exist, so I didn't catch on until the author, in one A/N, decided to go full Literary Darwin Award. (That is not a real thing, but it should be, just for this person.) Here's that A/N. Gaze upon it at your own risk.
You'll notice they couldn't even be bothered spelling the F-word right.
I stopped reading there. I didn't leave a review. I mean, what do you say to that?
Just about anything written by L Ron Hubbard.
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Really? I liked HPMOR a lot - or at least, I liked the first 20-30 or so chapters a lot, because they piqued my curiosity. They exposed me to a lot of concepts/verbal techniques that I would have never dreamed up otherwise (I'm looking at you, chapter 4).
If you're referring to everything after those beginning chapters, I can see why you'd say that it was bad as a fanfic, because as far as I can tell, it's only there to justify those beginning chapters plot-wise (as opposed to thinking through if-magic-were-real).
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Never, ever, ever judge a fanfic by the first few chapters. It starts out mediocre to bad, with Harry as somehow more of a Mary Sue than in canon. Move to a transparent Ender's Game ripoff, followed by really going down the rabbit hole by not understanding at all how much of the HP universe works, and championing the fear of death as the solution to everything.
It's kind of hilarious given that Big Yud hasn't read HP, so doesn't at any point grasp that Voldemort's whole fatal flaw was the fear of his own death, and tries to make that a superpower for his Harry.