Squirrelly's Fanfic Review Thread

[Master of Squirrel-fu]

This is the thread where I review the various fanfics I read. I tend to read all kinds, from the terrible to the awesome to the just plain weird. The good, the bad, and the ugly from many walks.

First off, the rating system I use. I have a sliding scale of 0-10, with 5 as the "passing score" or more accurately something I'd recommend to others.

0: the absolute bottom grade, it's not just bad, it's maliciously bad. It's the literary equivalent of the fic grabbing you and then clubbing you upside the head with a sock full of pennies and razerwire that has been soaked in acid.
1: Unreadable to the degree that it would be preferable to literally do nothing as the alternative.
3: A guilty pleasure at best. A pretty subpar fic at worst.
5: A fairly enjoyable work if also pretty flawed.
7: A Damn good fic and I'd very much recommend it to others who are in the fandom.
8: Great story, good enough to stand on it's own and I'd recommend reading it to even those who aren't interested in the fandom.
9: Perfect story. it has that added spark to make it really come alive. Would actually pay decent money for it.
10: The holy grail of good entertainment.

I tend judge a fic on 3 things mostly: The Quality, The Story, and The Interaction. Quality is for the technical skills of the writer, the story is how intriguing the the world and events are, and the Interaction is how invested I am with the characters and their motivations.

The types of fics you should expect to appear here are:

Classics of the Ranma fandom, I've read quite a few.
General Anime, usually Ranma, NGE, Naruto, Typemoon,
MLP fics, almost exclusively of Human in Equestria variety.
Random Crossovers, because I tend to browse that section when bored.
Worm Fics.

Template I'll use:

Spoiler: Template

Story:
Author:
Fandom:
Status:
Tags:

Review:

Score:

Spoiler: Index

[MLP:FiM] Hands - Andrew Joshua Talon
[SAO / FSN] Fate Revelation Online - Daneel Gudman

EDIT: Please feel free to post or comment. I might even do some requests but no promises.

 

[Master of Squirrel-fu]

Story: Hands
Author: Andrew Joshua Talon
Fandom: MLP:FiM
Status: Ongoing
Tags: Human in Equestria, HumanXPony, Harem Comedy


Review:
I had initially been expecting something far better from AJT. Something witty and creative. This was neither. I was moderately interested at first, even when the first major thing I hated came up within the first chapter. Namely completely skipping over the SI's first 2 months as he grows accustomed to an alien world with freaking magic talking ponies! Still, I have read some stories that still turned out good even when starting in media res (my most hated form of introduction). But it didn't really get better. The next few chapter just seemed kinda pointless, less like he was writing a story and more like he was just typing out a random idea to run with and hadn't quite fleshed it out before starting. I'll admit that a sometimes I found a few things amusing but overall it just seemed like a waste of time. And then there was all the immature sex gags. It was like a middle-schooler was writing it whenever something remotely sexual (Including non sexual things that just happen to be innuendo fuel) happened. I can understand the concept of him going "Prison gay" for ponies(hell even some farmers do and they still have humans around), but without building up a real relationship beforehand for the readers to see it just comes out of left field and makes the SI seem kinda creepy for lusting so hard after horses, even magic talking ones. And then there was the SI's knack for juggling both the conflict ball and idiot ball. Despite constantly jumping headfirst into danger senselessly in an over dramatic fashion he still only seems to go along for the ride on the plot railroad. It's like Shirou from In Flight, only exchange his constant pondering on killing things for justice with angsting about his Pony Lust. Honestly though, I feel that if he had just avoided the topic of sex and lust, or at least worked up to it, than this story might have been much more enjoyable.


Score: 3/10
Final notes: Okay technical skill, Boring plot, Boring characters. If you like Generic harem comedy than you'd probably enjoy this. I suppose it's better than staring at a blank page at least.

 

[Master of Squirrel-fu]

Story: Fate Revelation Online
Author: Daneel Gudman
Fandom: SAO, FSN
Status: Ongoing
Tags: Crossover, Large Cast, OP Hero, World Building

Review:
This is a great story. I'm not going to beat around the bush, I freaking love this story. The basic synopsis is that Kayaba, now a Magus, has trapped 10,000 gamers in his virtual world in an effort to spread the knowledge of Magecraft. Unknown to him at the time, trapped in the game as well are Illya and Shirou. Kayaba doesn't instantly reveal magic to the populace, rather he installs a "Mage-Craft Patch" to the game to ease them into the knowledge and designs the game to teach them how to use and abuse Magecraft to gain more data on Magecraft. The story focuses, however, on the characters caught in the death game. While Shiro tends to have alot of screen time he is not the only POV character, we also follow the adventures of most of the other cast for equal amounts of time. Asuna, Kirito, even some secondary SAO characters are given much greater roles such as Diabel, Argo, Griselda, and even several Original Characters.

All in all, the Technical skills are superb, his world feels large and thought out if somewhat all over the place at times, and it's his characters that really make the thing so great. All of them feel like people and he gives interesting insight into their minds and actions. Even the original characters, or the cannon characters who didn't really get fleshed out, are interesting. His slice of life chapters are just as fun to read as his epic boss fights.

Score: 8.5/10