Identifying & Avoiding Badfics
Article by TheAuthorGl1m0
Let’s face it; the internet is full of surprises. Many of which, as some of you might know, are not particularly pleasant. Fanfic archives like Fanfiction.net, FIMFiction.net and Pony Fiction Archive are loaded up every day with more and more of these terrible fanfics, and it’s a trend that’s not likely to wane anytime soon. Granted, these sites have been doing better in their quality-control and filtering methods than they were a year ago, but it’s still not enough.
Yes, Scootaloo. I am disappoint as well.
To prepare you for the badfic shitstorm, I’m going to walk you through the many types of awful fanfiction on the net, including some warning signs and detailed explanations of badfic categorizations. We may not be able to stop the oncoming tides of dreadful fanfiction, but at least I can potentially help you avoid the pain of reading the worst of it, so that something like this doesn’t happen to you...
Just wait until you see Chapter 5, when the fork is put in the other way!
And so, while I pass around the brain bleach, here are the many types of badfics that you, as the innocent reader, might be unfortunate enough to encounter on the worldwide web:
The Gorefic
Danger Level: High
Examples: Cupcakes, Sweet Apple Massacre
This kind of fic contains generous amounts of gore, if the name alone somehow didn’t tip you off. It’s not as simple as just having gore in the story; it gruesomely depicts every unnecessary and stomach-churning detail for all who read it. A true gorefic revolves around the gore aspect exclusively, and a few even dare to cross over into cloppish territory (which is even worse). OOC is almost a given here, especially if the series the fanfic is based on could have less to do with gore. The plot is also either non-existent or excuse-based, all for the sake of gore. Ew.
The Lemon (aka Clopfest)
Danger Level: High
Examples: Only Human, They Always Come Early
Basically, it’s sex for the sake of sex. Or, if you’d rather, “porn without plot”. There’s usually no discernable action or conflict to be found in the story; it’s usually just a simple oneshot about two (and sometimes three) people gettin’ it on for a single scene. Any morals are non-existent within this category, and a majority of them aren’t very well-written (with some exceptions, though it doesn’t save the genre much face). FIMFiction author darf is notorious for penning stories like these, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s a frequent visitor of the site’s Featured Box.
The Rapefic
Danger Level: Extreme
Examples: Rarity’s Generous Plan,
Oooooh, boy. Listen up, kids: rape is not a nice thing, and it’s not something to take lightly. Poor, helpless girls and women (and sometimes boys too), are subjected to sexual torment in these kind of fics. It differs from the more “casual” lemonfic in that the intercourse portrayed in these fics is more aggressive and often against the will of one of the partners. These tend to generate a lot of hate, and with good reason. Any fic showing signs of extremely one-sided sexual congress should be avoided. At all costs.
The Trollfic
Danger Level: High
Examples: The Spiderses, My Little PONEY: The parody from hell.
These kinds of fics are just plain out to get you. Namely, the author created this kind of story just to annoy/piss-off anyone who reads it, all in the good spirit of trolling. Some of these fics are earmarked as “parodies”, and rightfully so. Most trollfics (such as Spiderses) are written to be intentionally horrible, with traits such as bad grammar, a twisted and bizarre sense of humor, nearly unreadable sentences, and a distinct impression that the author may possibly be a brain-dead chimpanzee that someone decided to give a keyboard because they thought it would be funny. Some are relatively harmless, but others can quickly dip into NSFW territory and ruin your mind. Be wary.
The Hatefic (aka Anti-Fic)
Danger Level: Medium to Extreme
Examples: A Fun Day!, My Little Unicorn
While Trollfics are usually written to annoy or poke fun, Hatefics are instead written with more malicious intent. Maybe the author doesn’t like someone or something in the show, and sets out to not just change it, but attack it via fanfiction, just to spite it. (They might even attack other members of the fandom that they dislike, in a more Meta example.) Most hatefics can be immediately identified if the fic targets a specific character or show and makes it suffer. While a few are absurdly-written and fall a bit flat in the “hate” department, many can be quite vitriolic. Generally, hatefics are not tolerated on many websites, yet they exist out there on the web, mostly hidden from the eyes of the public.
The Insertfic (aka OC Takeover)
Danger Level: Medium to High
Examples: My Second Life, Living the Dream
One of the biggest offenders that stand in the way of a good story is the Mary-Sue. It’s an even worse one is when said Mary Sue is an author self-insert, hence the name Insertfic. These fics are mainly written as wish-fulfillment stories, with the main character being some kind of Mary Sue/Marty Stu OC self-insert running around in the world of their choice having adventures. While there are plenty of good fanfics that feature OCs, the ones in these kinds of fics steal all of the original cast’s thunder with no real justification, aside from the fact that they “just can, ‘cuz they’re cool”. Don’t waste your time with these stories.
The Crackfic
Danger Level: Varied
Example: PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP, The Worst Fanfic EVER
These are probably the strangest ones of the bunch. It’s known as a “crackfic” because the story is nonsensical enough to lead one to wonder if the author was hopped-up on cocaine while they were writing it. This is a tricky kind of fic to categorize, mainly because crackfics can be considered both bad and good. So Bad It’s Good, you might even say. Be careful not to confuse these with Trollfics, because some might be similar in style and ridiculousness. As far as badness goes, it can range from simple, random idiocy to complete mind-raping madness that will make you cry out for release. Be cautious.
The Boredfic / Darefic
Danger Level: Varied
Examples:
When the author claims they wrote a story because they were “bored” or someone “dared” them to, then you have these kinds of fics. Category-wise, they aren’t much different from each other, and often cross-over with at least one other grouping of badfic. Boredfics are heavy indicators of badness because it usually indicates the author didn’t put very much effort into the story itself, which, if it already was meant to be any of the above types of fic or otherwise, should be an obvious red flag. Although there have been a rare few boredfics that were actually fairly decent, it’s still recommended that you avoid these kinds of fanfics whenever you can (or at least go in with near-nil expectations. You've been warned!).
Danger Level: High
Examples: Cupcakes, Sweet Apple Massacre
This kind of fic contains generous amounts of gore, if the name alone somehow didn’t tip you off. It’s not as simple as just having gore in the story; it gruesomely depicts every unnecessary and stomach-churning detail for all who read it. A true gorefic revolves around the gore aspect exclusively, and a few even dare to cross over into cloppish territory (which is even worse). OOC is almost a given here, especially if the series the fanfic is based on could have less to do with gore. The plot is also either non-existent or excuse-based, all for the sake of gore. Ew.
The Lemon (aka Clopfest)
Danger Level: High
Examples: Only Human, They Always Come Early
Basically, it’s sex for the sake of sex. Or, if you’d rather, “porn without plot”. There’s usually no discernable action or conflict to be found in the story; it’s usually just a simple oneshot about two (and sometimes three) people gettin’ it on for a single scene. Any morals are non-existent within this category, and a majority of them aren’t very well-written (with some exceptions, though it doesn’t save the genre much face). FIMFiction author darf is notorious for penning stories like these, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s a frequent visitor of the site’s Featured Box.
The Rapefic
Danger Level: Extreme
Examples: Rarity’s Generous Plan,
Oooooh, boy. Listen up, kids: rape is not a nice thing, and it’s not something to take lightly. Poor, helpless girls and women (and sometimes boys too), are subjected to sexual torment in these kind of fics. It differs from the more “casual” lemonfic in that the intercourse portrayed in these fics is more aggressive and often against the will of one of the partners. These tend to generate a lot of hate, and with good reason. Any fic showing signs of extremely one-sided sexual congress should be avoided. At all costs.
The Trollfic
Danger Level: High
Examples: The Spiderses, My Little PONEY: The parody from hell.
These kinds of fics are just plain out to get you. Namely, the author created this kind of story just to annoy/piss-off anyone who reads it, all in the good spirit of trolling. Some of these fics are earmarked as “parodies”, and rightfully so. Most trollfics (such as Spiderses) are written to be intentionally horrible, with traits such as bad grammar, a twisted and bizarre sense of humor, nearly unreadable sentences, and a distinct impression that the author may possibly be a brain-dead chimpanzee that someone decided to give a keyboard because they thought it would be funny. Some are relatively harmless, but others can quickly dip into NSFW territory and ruin your mind. Be wary.
The Hatefic (aka Anti-Fic)
Danger Level: Medium to Extreme
Examples: A Fun Day!, My Little Unicorn
While Trollfics are usually written to annoy or poke fun, Hatefics are instead written with more malicious intent. Maybe the author doesn’t like someone or something in the show, and sets out to not just change it, but attack it via fanfiction, just to spite it. (They might even attack other members of the fandom that they dislike, in a more Meta example.) Most hatefics can be immediately identified if the fic targets a specific character or show and makes it suffer. While a few are absurdly-written and fall a bit flat in the “hate” department, many can be quite vitriolic. Generally, hatefics are not tolerated on many websites, yet they exist out there on the web, mostly hidden from the eyes of the public.
The Insertfic (aka OC Takeover)
Danger Level: Medium to High
Examples: My Second Life, Living the Dream
One of the biggest offenders that stand in the way of a good story is the Mary-Sue. It’s an even worse one is when said Mary Sue is an author self-insert, hence the name Insertfic. These fics are mainly written as wish-fulfillment stories, with the main character being some kind of Mary Sue/Marty Stu OC self-insert running around in the world of their choice having adventures. While there are plenty of good fanfics that feature OCs, the ones in these kinds of fics steal all of the original cast’s thunder with no real justification, aside from the fact that they “just can, ‘cuz they’re cool”. Don’t waste your time with these stories.
The Crackfic
Danger Level: Varied
Example: PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP, The Worst Fanfic EVER
These are probably the strangest ones of the bunch. It’s known as a “crackfic” because the story is nonsensical enough to lead one to wonder if the author was hopped-up on cocaine while they were writing it. This is a tricky kind of fic to categorize, mainly because crackfics can be considered both bad and good. So Bad It’s Good, you might even say. Be careful not to confuse these with Trollfics, because some might be similar in style and ridiculousness. As far as badness goes, it can range from simple, random idiocy to complete mind-raping madness that will make you cry out for release. Be cautious.
The Boredfic / Darefic
Danger Level: Varied
Examples:
When the author claims they wrote a story because they were “bored” or someone “dared” them to, then you have these kinds of fics. Category-wise, they aren’t much different from each other, and often cross-over with at least one other grouping of badfic. Boredfics are heavy indicators of badness because it usually indicates the author didn’t put very much effort into the story itself, which, if it already was meant to be any of the above types of fic or otherwise, should be an obvious red flag. Although there have been a rare few boredfics that were actually fairly decent, it’s still recommended that you avoid these kinds of fanfics whenever you can (or at least go in with near-nil expectations. You've been warned!).
Now, there are also many other kinds of subcategories of the fics above, but it’s far too much work going through and explaining them all in short order. And even then, you might even happen across a fanfic that doesn’t necessarily fall under any of the above groups, but is still bad. Who knows, that fanfic you saved in your Favorites box or Read Later list might actually be pretty terrible, and you had no idea! And so, below are the many warning signs that the fanfic you’re reading may, in fact, be really crappy:
- The canon characters are acting radically OOC (out of character), without a reasonable explanation why.
- A character that has never appeared in the show (an OC) is instantly known and loved by just about everyone.
- Misspellings and formatting errors are commonplace.
- The author claims that they "suck at writing summaries".
- The dialogue is either far too abrupt, ridiculously long, or takes turns being both.
- [If you’re reading it on FIMFiction.] The red bar is significantly larger than the green one.
- The first paragraph alone makes your brain cry.
- You need to take a 3-hour break after the first chapter.
- You feel an unnatural urge to punch something while reading the story.
- You experience odd bodily symptoms such as:
- Loss of appetite.
- Headaches.
- Upset stomach.
- DEEP HURTING.
- Bladder infection.
- Hysteria.
- Cancer. - The story doesn’t so much look like a series of paragraphs as it does like the alphabet threw up all over your screen.
- The plot borders on outright implausibility and ridiculousness.
- A character almost literally pulls the solution to a problem out of their ass.
- The story warns you not to read the story in its own description.
- The author admits to being intoxicated and/or high while writing it.
- It got riffed by Fan/fic/ Theater 3000.
- It got riffed by anyone, really.
- Three words: WALL OF TEXT.
- The comment section includes an awful lot of “comment deleted” posts, presumably from commenters offering up legitimate criticisms of the story.
- The author is kind of a dink.
- The author’s name is Mykan.
[Note: I'm pretty sure this is only a partial list; I might add to it in the future.]
And so, dear readers, that’s all the advice I have to give for now. I hope that you may have learned something today, and now know some helpful tips on avoiding the menace that is… bad fanfiction. (And if you didn’t, then no, you’re not getting a refund.)
-TheAuthorGl1m0
-TheAuthorGl1m0
This editorial page was last edited on: March 11, 2013
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