Mystery Science Theater En Masse
Behind The Scenes: Season Seven
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M67/409 - Crescent Variation and Crescent variation altered story
Now... I will be lenient when it comes to the Stuthor's English skills here, since this fic (and the sequel, "Moonlight Warrior") happened to be written before "Outcast Saga". So, to be fair, I will commend him on his English skills improving along the way. Once again, this proves that it is still the least of the problems here.
With that out of the way...
(Regarding "Crescent Variaion")
Holy crap, the block paragraph in Part Two hurt my eyes so much. It was even worse than the block paragraphs in the first "Sabrina's Adventure". That's the first major problem.
The second and biggest problem?
Michiru. Is. A. Lesbian. I don't know how much I need to stress this. Seriously, Stuthor, stop erasing sexual orientations just so they can sleep with your poorly devoloped Gary Stu self-insert. And no, the "this was before she met Haruka" bullshit doesn't fly at all... especially when she's still pining for your self-insert's stupid ass after she allegedly moved on.
What's the point of even having her together with an incredibly OOC Haruka, then? What's the point if she really doesn't love Haruka at all?
Oh, that's right. Lesbians "still have sex with men", according to the Stuthor. God... damn it.
I'm not looking forward to riffing the sequel of this nonsense at all, because it's going to have full-blown homophobia in it. I won't even say how bad it gets.
(Regarding "Crescent variation altered story")
*flips her computer desk*
I want to pretend that this did not exist at all. It was just the Stuthor wanking to how much of a "manly man" his self-insert is.
M68/307 - An Open Letter to Rey from Star Wars
Absolutely atrocious. This was a horrible article that was full of hot garbage and inconsistencies. There's nothing else that I can say.
M69/410 - Mike put his frosting in Bella's cake
I'm... just going to quote this from the person who ran the "Twilight Sue of the Day", because that's where I discovered this shitty fanfic. Yes, I'm calling it a shitty fanfic.
Actually, most of the "Twilight" fics that I riffed were featured there, but I digress. Here's the quote:
"This is disgusting. It's people like this that are the reason why rape is still mostly considered a joke crime in the US; it's the woman's fault for wearing mini-skirts or whatever crap that they have to tell us. This person ought to be ashamed of themselves for even thinking of writing such a horrible, rape-victim shaming story."
And I'll have to agree. This fic was so bad that the editor practically quit halfway through Part Two. It got so bad that he now refuses to bother with any more "Twilight" fic riffings for the rest of the main series. Yeah, this fic killed it for him.
I'm actually surprised that nobody ripped this thing to shreds in the comments, either. Everyone in this fic who was not named Bella, Alice, or Jasper were all complete idiots. (I will not count the Denali clan in this since they weren't in the main conflict.)
I hated this fic. I will always hate this shitty trash that had the nerve to call itself a fic.
M70/601 - Emily H the Viking Princess
This fic was just a convoluted mess. And it was great. The editor, on the other hand... he kind of questioned his sanity during the random sex scenes.
Sad thing is after three terrible episodes in a row, this was a very odd refresher to riff.
M71/308 - The New Girl (KRZR24 Version)
(Sasha's the worst character for this season.)
Fuck this fic.
Yes, I'm going there, just like I did with "Outcast Saga". Fuck this fic, fuck these crappy characters (with the exceptions of Knuckles, Blaze, Tails, and Cream, with minor exceptions for Amy and Rouge), fuck the blatant character bashing, and most of all... fuck that demonic and abusive Mary Sue.
Seriously, I literally hated every single last thing about Sasha (with the incident where she put Sonic in the hospital ranking as the worst thing, followed by her ripping off an elderly man). She was one of the worst characters that I've ever dealt with in a fic, right up there with Benji. She literally knocked Kathryn off of the worst Mary Sue pedestal. That's how bad she is.
I was literally annoyed as I riffed this, and that's saying something. Also, I have never seen a bad fic where stupidity is literally rewarded and being smart is "stupid".
Not only that, it got even worse when we were told that Amy and the Sue were close... only for the Sue (and her hack Suethor) to insult her at every opportunity.
And then, it got worse with Sonic. He was this incredibly obnoxious idiot (and that's a trait that he is usually smacked with in bad Sonic fics) who was then turned into an incredibly horrible "Nice Guy" who really didn't deserve Amy after all of the whining that he did. Unfortunately, I ended up gaining sympathy for him because of the Sue putting him in the hospital. You know, if I end up having sympathy for an unlikable character, that's a sure sign that you have messed up in your story.
And then it got even worse with the random "evil" Sally and how we were supposed to feel sorry for the Sue because she had anorexia. Let me tell you... that was randomly shoehorned in for a poor attempt to gain sympathy points. Number one, it didn't work. Number two... that felt like a slap in the face to those who actually had that eating disorder. And it caused me to hate that fic and that Sue even more.
This was the worst Sonic fic that I've ever riffed. I don't think that any fic can top this.
M72/A15 - Sailor Sun
Oh, dear lord. I've never seen a fic that was so... stilted. I actually had a hard time trying to finish this riffing because the fic itself was that bland. Not only that, Ana was just a boring mess of a Mary Sue. No, she wasn't infuriating, but she really was a badly written character.
And yes, one of Manic's lines really did mirror my feelings at one point... it's true, I nearly ran out of riffs for this fic. That's how boring it was.
M73/B15 - All My Heart
This... um... well... I can't say that this fic was good, because it definitely wasn't. It's also not the worst fic in the entire series up to this point. I can only say that it was incredibly dull. The rushed pacing didn't help, either.
Long story short, it's just your run of the mill rushed badfic. That's about it.
M74/C06 - Sailor Moon:Fantasy!
Well, this fic was originally supposed to have the tag of "M63/C05", but... I just didn't feel like bothering with a fic with multiple chapters after I finished "Catwoman: Rebirth", so I settled for riffing "Lust for bust" instead. Yes, laziness stalled this riffing by a season. That's also why there were a small handful of oneshot riffings near the end of Season 6.
Anyway... whoo, this fic was incredibly boring, bland, and at times, mind-numbing. It wasn't frustrating, but it was a hot mess that had so much stuff shoehorned into it that it tried to be an erotica.
On the other hand, I guess others can consider this to be yet another comedy. So, hey, if you like badly written sex scenes, here's another fic for you to laugh at. I'm not going to judge.
M75/D06 - Closing Time
This is another fic that stuck with me around the time I stumbled into "KOF-XXX". Unlike that fic, this one... yeah, I'm not going to lie, it was a pretty good fic to deal with. It was also pretty tricky to riff, so it was pretty hard to make snarky comments here and there. How can you riff a fic that's actually good? I also had the same problem when it came to riffing the other palate cleansers, but it really showed when I dealt with "How a Spark Becomes a Flame". Palate cleansers are hard to riff in general for me, since the fics themselves usually provide and set up the jokes. With fics like this one, the game changes into the riffers setting themselves up for different punchlines instead.
Besides, after dealing with the mess that was "Sailor Moon:Fantasy!", I think a palate cleanser was desperately needed.
M76/E03 - Wish Upon a Starr
This fic was originally supposed to have the tag of "M62/A14"... which means that yes, this was originally supposed to go to the Egg Spiral hedgehogs. Yes, laziness stalled this riffing by a season, too.
Anyway... I can't mince words. This fic was terrible. The random "humor" annoyed me, and the weird part was that Starr was mostly okay... until Chapter Six... where she wouldn't shut the fuck up. All she did was constantly whine to the point where I wanted to strangle her. Her constant butting into other people's conversations was also a huge negative.
And after all of that... she was only the second (or third, your mileage may vary) worst character in this fic. I actually hated Shadow more than I hated Starr. It was mainly because she wasn't obnoxious from the get-go, but Shadow was.
Even if she was the worst character in this fic, it would've been incredibly impossible to make her the worst Sue for this season. Starr was only a brat that had Sue traits, but she never came off as a full-blown Mary Sue in this fic. Sasha already set the high bar with her awful self, and that just made Starr look like small potatoes compared to that Sue.
In an unrelated note, this fic caused me to hate "pancakes and pickles" now. They were never good together, and they never will be.
M77/S07 - The Scar
This fic was originally supposed to be the sixth special, so the original tag was meant to be "M65/S06". This riffing was also delayed, but it wasn't because of laziness. It was actually being updated with new chapters while I was contemplating on riffing it for Season 6. Also, I found "Outcast Saga" while setting that season's roster up, and it was ten times worse than this fic.
Now, about the fic itself...
I can't say "Fuck this fic". I can, however, say that... well, I didn't like Kyle too much. He's no Benji (thank goodness), but the constant shilling along with his asshole personality in the earlier chapters didn't help, and the forced sympathy points didn't truly heal the fic's self-inflicted wounds. It might have worked if he was the stereotypical action hero who had reality hit him like a freight train, which I'm sure the fic was trying to do in later chapters. Unfortunately, that didn't work because he ended up whining too damned much, and the narration (and some of the characters) kept cramming the "But he's just a kid!" line down the audience's throats. Yes, the whining tapers off a bit as time goes on, but still. Even worse, the "braggart who got hit with the reality hammer" character was already used better... with Cage. You know, the role that the Stu poorly hijacked from him?
Even with all of those flaws, Kyle/Scar couldn't even come close to or top Sasha for the worst character this season. Why? Because at least he's called out for his actions and is smacked around a bit. Sasha, on the other hand, got away with every dirty thing that she did. Even if she was responsible for something, it was always someone else's fault.
And unlike "The New Girl", this fic does have something positive: the fight scenes. They weren't perfect, but they were definitely decently written. And this is coming from someone who can't write fight scenes for crap, by the way. Another positive thing happened to be the descriptions. Problem with that was they ended up being too descriptive to the point where some words served as padding (see Kitana's kata scene in Part Eight for the possible best example). This fic also has what most bad fics and some stories do not... the characters aren't completely rock stupid here. Oh, sure, some characters had a few IQ points knocked out of them, but at least there's no "someone has to do something incredibly stupid to further the plot" nonsense... even though someone had to do something stupid to begin the plot in the first place.
After looking through everything, I can pretty much say that this guy tried his damndest to write a coherent story. Oh, yeah, it's heavily flawed, but something's definitely there in this thing. It's clearly not the worst fic for this season, and it's clearly not the worst fic for this series. Since the author did say that writing is his passion... yeah, I honestly think that he should keep at it.
Just make sure that there are no stolen items in those stories next time. Again, plagiarism is a giant black mark in writing.
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