Vertigo Reviews: Fair Trial (for some reason) · 5:14pm May 4th, 2019
I've had an extremely busy, less-than stellar past few weeks to say the least. On the bright side, I’ve modified my review format to be more organized. So let’s have the inaugural review be something outlandishly terrible. Though I want to warn you all that it contains some dark and sensitive topics.
Story 1: Fair Trial by Sonic_Applejack2005
I went through the author’s other stories just to make sure that they were a trollfic author. Or, at least, I think they are. If they aren’t and this is genuinely what they believe to qualify as both a depiction of the justice system in anything outside of a world akin to Mad Max or anarchism, then I weep for law and order. Then again, this is the internet and anything is possible. Save two things.
Girls don’t exist; they’re actually men.
Little girls don’t exist; they’re actually FBI agents.
With that said, I want to dedicate a review to this story and dissect it like the review(s) for The Lost Sun. This is because, while it may be intended to just get a rise out of people, it gives me a chance to discuss something I often seen done horrendously wrong in stories: courtroom scenes. To say that the depiction of law, order, and how court hearings go is a catastrophe would be like saying that detonating a nuclear warhead in the middle of Manhattan would be less-than okay.
Our story begins with the following four paragraphs.
"Settle down, everypony. Let's get this shit over with," Celestia said with a yawn, banging her gavel down on the sound block sitting on the wooden desk in front of her.
"RAINBOW DASH RAPED ME!" screamed Scootaloo.
"I did not, you little fucker!" Rainbow Dash shouted back. It was extremely upsetting to her that she was even there in the first place. It was a ridiculous accusation that never should have made it to the court, but here they were, wasting everypony's time.
"What's even the problem with that? I grab mares by the pussy all the time," said Celestia.
This is easily one of the most “to-the-point” openings I’ve ever seen in anything. Not even the Fast and Furious movies are so quick to establish that what you’re about to bear witness to is going to be brainless. Normally, everything I’d just have said would be praise. In this story’s case however, I couldn’t be more flabbergasted if as I typed this, an elephant stampeded through my front door with Tim Burton riding on its back.
Let me start off with something positive. The opening paragraph is actually pretty amusing. It’s an interesting way to ease the reader into a story that markets itself as a serious courtroom drama. Overall, it's not bad.
Then comes the second paragraph. Scootaloo's action isn't something out of the ordinary. There have been plenty of emotional outbursts in courtrooms before, both from defendants and plaintiffs. These sorts of outbursts happen for an array of reasons, be they verdicts or simply the emotional intensity of court hearings.
In this case, it's understandable that Scootaloo would act this way. She is, after all, a child. However, the placement of the line is laughable. Whenever you write anything, you want to establish some sort of tone and atmosphere. This is why stories generally start by having narration describe what's going on, where the story takes place, who the key players are, and when this is taking place. If you want to be really crazy, sometimes narration will even explain how our key players got to this point.
By not having that narration to assist in easing the reader into the story, a line one would normally have to elicit an emotional response from the reader comes across as exploitive and manipulative. Given that this is a trollfic however, that's to be expected. We'll touch on this later however.
With the third paragraph,we see Rainbow Dash's response. It, like Scootaloo's response, is understandable and even realistic. Emotions run high in courtrooms for trials of all kinds. On its own and at its core: Rainbow's response is genuinely fine.
The problem is how its placed and how it all flows.
Scenes like this need build up. I've read quite a few stories that have suffered from this and it can make a scene that would otherwise be great falter at best and end up completely ruined at worst. Normally, it's the latter because the scene tries to continue to be dramatic; it ends up looking rather silly.
One other detrimental flaw to the paragraph is the follow-up sentence to Rainbow's statement.
It was extremely upsetting to her that she was even there in the first place. It was a ridiculous accusation that never should have made it to the court, but here they were, wasting everypony's time.
I can't stress how important it is for things like this be spoken. This is especially important in a courtroom drama. Court hearings and trials are the epitome of showing and telling. You show evidence and you speak your piece; you make a case for your innocence and the guilt of the individual or vice-versa. The quoted sentences are sentences that are critical to showing the tension and the emotional toll that characters are suffering. To leave them as narration is to sacrifice so much power your story could have.
The fourth paragraph is the story shows its true nature. Personally, I believe the first sentence is the most important one in a story. It's the hook to your story. Likewise, the first paragraph to the story is the most important: it should establish the tone and feel your story will be taking.
This story waits until the fourth and opts to subvert what it's setting out to do in an extremely bizarre manner. Now admittedly, one can argue and state that the cover art says everything. I'd argue that that isn't an excuse for this—trollfic or not. Generally, with a trollfic, one would want the bait to be as strong as possible so one doesn't catch in that you're taking the piss. Where's the fun in that?
The last thing about the paragraph I'll mention is its rather blatant reference to president Donald Trump. A reference for the sake of a reference in any story is a surefire way to make your story feel woefully dated. A political reference for the sake of a political reference is a surefire way to ignite an argument. Both are equally cringe worthy, but in the case of this story: it somehow manages to encompass the worst of both worlds.
Given the story's a trollfic, one has to naturally acknowledge this is the intent. However, the low hanging fruit that is president Trump makes this story feel like it's low effort. Especially when done without some sort of payoff.
Anyways, now that those four paragraphs are out of the way, let's discuss the premise to this story. Rainbow Dash has allegedly raped Scootaloo. The topic of rape is something that I put on the same shelf as murder. It's a topic a lot of novice writers will try to use to add some edge to their story and it'll almost always backfire. This is because most will treat it extremely lightly and rather than build something around the event—such as the exploration of the emotional trauma—the writer uses it so their original character can gain sympathy points from the reader or it's a revenge motive. The latter can work, but it requires a talented writer to make it succeed.
In the case of this story, it does neither. Nevertheless, Its use of the topic is nevertheless extraordinarily callous and is used for shock value. I feel its callousness ends up drastically reducing the overall shock of it all. See, the over-the-top, trashy nature of the story leads to me laughing. I must confess that the awful writing in these types of stories always makes me laugh. Contrasting this however is the very dark topic of rape, which makes the humor of the bad writing much less funny and more uncomfortable. So what you get is a story that ends up cannibalizing itself.
Let’s finally move on though. The story introduces Sunset Shimmer into the mix as Rainbow Dash’s lawyer because she couldn’t afford an actual lawyer. We also get some more inane attempts at satire with Rainbow accusing Celestia of separating children at the border and asking Yaks for assistance in the election. It’s yet another shining example of forcing in something that doesn’t belong due to the story’s nature. It’s also an example of a trollfic not quite understanding what kind of provocation it wants to aim for. This story already has the topic of rape at its disposal; I don’t quite understand the need to throw in politics into the fray. It muddies the water as it now needs to play two instruments at once.
In a display worthy of an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, the story then proceeds to repeatedly implode with back-and-forth banter between the cast with increasingly silly and nonsensical dialogue that amounts to extremely little. Some of it admittedly made me laugh due to the sheer nature of its insanity, but more often than not, it didn’t. This is because this story accelerates way too quickly in its ridiculousness. For a trollfic, this is fine to a degree since by nature the story isn’t meant to be serious, but I still can’t help but think that even this is too fast.
A little over halfway into the story—which I should mention is a mere 1,077 words long (about the average length of a trollfic in my eyes)—we learn that Rainbow Dash has an alibi for the night of the alleged rape. This then allows the story to rush headlong into the ending which is mean spirited to say the least, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming. All in all, it’s a beautiful showcasing of just how horrendously paced this story is.
I would’ve loved to have shared more of the story, but given that I don’t want to spoil the meticulously crafted genius that is Fair Trial (and since I don’t want future reviews in this format to be spoiled, especially if they’re good), I’ll help you visualize it. Imagine, if you will, trying to have a slinky roll down a flight of stairs. Only, you lean too far forward and end up becoming the slinky as you roll down the stairs and you destroy the slinky. The slinky is how you actually write a story. You’re this story.
As a whole: Fair Trial presents itself in about the worst possible way without being a complete travesty in the way of its spelling and punctuation. Indeed, by some incredible stroke of luck, I didn’t notice any grammatical errors. The full capitalization of certain words and sentences was obnoxious in of itself, but this is the only part of the story that didn’t fall apart. Rather peculiar, but I guess every dog has its day.
The author's note however is a travesty, but I don't want to cover that thing.
As far as a story’s depiction of rape goes, Fair Trial isn’t the most offensively bad portrayal I’ve seen. This is mostly thanks to it being a blatantly obvious troll. Had it been a straight-faced effort, I’d be a lot angrier. A story like Clockwork: Your Time is Up is something that I can get pissed at thanks to it being something serious and using the topic of rape as a means of squeezing sympathy points from the reader for the main character, who without that tragic event having happened to them would be as shallow as a kiddie pool.
If I had to pick anything that this story that did anger me, it’s the story’s final paragraph, which states that Rainbow’s now Equestria’s most prolific serial rapist, but due to Scootaloo having been sent to Tartarus for lying, her fate now serves as the precedent for every other accuser Rainbow’s had. I also believe this is an unstated time jump given the way it reads compared to the previous few paragraphs. If this is the case, then I can’t believe that this actually exists in a trollfic of all things. Seldom do I see time jumps this ridiculous, but enough about this. Let’s discuss what angered me.
Fair Trial, from the get-go, has this air that it’s going to end one way: with Rainbow getting away with what she’s done. That I was able to see since I didn’t believe it had the balls to actually pull the rug out from beneath me to be about a false rape accusation. Besides, being a trollfic, that’d go against its very nature. However, the tone of the final paragraph is an absurdly stark contrast to the rest of the actual story. Everything from how it’s structured to its wording to just how it all around feels is wildly out of place. Tonal shifts in story’s are akin to tense swaps for me in that I find them to be inexcusable no matter what. I can let a lot slide by with a trollfic. Its trivialization of so many abhorrent topics definitely isn’t one of them, but to criticize the story for that is to essentially criticize it for being what it is. I find that to be equal to arguing with a brick wall. However, the stark tonal shift is something that feels jaw-droppingly out of place. Not helping matters is the author’s note at the end with more or less made this entire ordeal come full circle in the dumbest way possible.
To finally remark on what I said earlier about discussing courtroom dramas, I want to say that remarkably: this isn’t the worst one I’ve read. There’s one that’s far worse since it actually took itself seriously and somehow managed to get every minute detail about law and order incorrectly to the point I wanted to eat plastic. Nonetheless, this is a close second. It, at the absolute least, got the idea of being assigned an attorney correctly and didn’t have Rainbow Dash represent herself—something I would’ve half expected had this story not thrown me into what felt like the middle of the story.
Most other courtroom-centric stories I can’t stay fall victim to many of the pitfalls this story does (such as being way too fast in their pacing), but I wouldn’t mind seeing some other stories take the cue of having emotional outbursts from the plaintiff or defendant. I feel that some authors believe that outbursts like that will shatter tension, though I’m of the opinion can add it. It helps to showcase how much of a toll the entire ordeal has on the minds of people. Though perhaps I don’t read enough courtroom drama fanfics. I digress though.
This story’s characterization is… special. I will admit that Celestia’s depiction is the best part of the entire story and is the most consistently funny. This is more or less due to the topic of rape not looming over her head and while one can argue that her not taking Scootaloo seriously isn’t funny, I’ll begrudgingly admit that I nevertheless found it to be amusing. It’s the closest to a real character in any sort of story, trollfic or not, that felt somewhat genuine. The other three characters all feel too extreme to really operate in sort of capacity that I could deem funny. Trollfics, I find, have the benefit of making extremes either amusing or horrifying without entering self-parody territory. This story somehow managed to do that, which I believe to be a monumental achievement.
But ultimately, that’s a pointless argument. All of this review is. This is a trollfic afterall. However, I wanted to find something extremely simplistic to test drive a new review format with to see what you all thought of it. I've been wanting to rework how I do reviews to maximize the amount of feedback I can give and this story was the perfect kind of story to use as a sort of “prototype”, lest I review an actual story and end fumbling some specific aspect of it.
Anyways, to end this off: trollfics can work—they can be absolutely hysterical and seeing people fall hook, like, and sinker for what’s ultimately meant to be a shitpost can be very amusing. The stories themselves can even be funny. Stories like Fair Trial however are abject failures because they’re ultimately too stupid to even be funny. All that’s left is the disbelief that this was somehow seen as acceptable even in the realm of being a troll.
In other words: this is low-quality bait.
Final Score: Simon Kinberg
The next review batch will be written in this format, which is more or less based off of the one I gave The Lost Sun, but much less… dissective. It'll cover parts, both good and bad, that I can talk about and why they make the story great or poor without spoiling it in its entirety. That said: please, tell me if there’s anything I should polish. I’d like for this format to be as finalized as possible before I actually use it for something of genuine worth. Also, as always: thanks for reading!
Vert, I always have to wonder if you have a sadomasochist streak.
5053397 I know not what you speak of.
More quotations and examples from the text in certain places would be a great help in getting more of a taste. Only criticism I can really give, though. Noice job.
5053403
I was thinking of that too, but in this story's case, it was a little difficult due to the very awful nature of the topic and how short it was. I didn't quite plan for that when I began this, but I also didn't want to use a genuine story as a testing ground. Thank you for that though, I know I wasn't crazy to think that. ^_^
And I love your profile picture!
5053406
D'aww, thanks! *blush*
Is the next story to be reviewed Pony of Vengeance?
5053409
Gimme a time; I wanna read through some other stories. I promise though, I will get to it. It's simply a matter of how much time I have and as it stands, that's a wee bit reserved thanks to other things.
God willing, it'll be soon! :)
5053411
Thanks for the promise. I can be patient. Take as long as you need!