Welcome to Badfic Review Theater here in our new location at terrapin tarts forums! I'd like to give a shout out to the Tarts and thank everyone involved in further enabling my ranting sessions by giving me this shiny board. (And comparing me to the master of snarkery, Colbert. I am merely a humble novice at the master's feet.)

Anyway, I got a special request to review the slashfic: 'Beauty and the Beast'. Well, actually, it's in all caps: 'BEAUTY AND THE BEAST', like the author has temporarily taken leave of her senses and feels as though she must belt out the title of this timeless tale of love and self discovery. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, she screams into my ear, IT'S FULL OF SLASHY GOODNESS. SLASHITY SLASH. POSSIBLY MIKEY IN A DRESS. Okay, fine, let's take a look at it.

First thing we see is Michelangelo being a creepy stalker and spying, unseen in the shadows as Leo and Usagi go through...a typical sparring session. WHUT. Mike, there's no need for this nonsense. First of all, the Dojo is smack in the middle of the freakin' lair. Just lean over the upstairs railing if you want to check them out. And even if it wasn't, they're just fighting. Watching them is not a sinful pleasure, you silly little turtle.

Anyway, he's sitting there in the shadows, thinking about how deep and insightful and thoughtful he is. Because he's more observant than other people seem to think, you understand. Apparently 'observant' is what they call blatantly obvious twerp spies nowadays. He's also an aspiring author, may god have mercy on the publishers' souls. This Mike seems like the type to write emo whiny romances. He decides that Leo and Usagi are an epic romance version of the Tortoise and the Hare. For serious, people. And the author seems to think this is a highly clever notion, when it's actually really obvious and Raph probably makes sarcastic comments about it all the time.

Still. Tortoise and the Hare. EPIC ROMANCE.

'Scuse me while I shoot Jolt out of my nose.

Mike seems to believe that Usagi totally hung out with his brother when Leo was on his training mission in South America. Because Usagi doesn't have a life of his own, and it's not like such a visit would require preparation and communication ahead of time and a big portal ritual. No, he just popped in through a wormhole and brought Doritos. People have become entirely too spoiled when it comes to inter-dimensional portals. In MY day we had to work for those, dammit.

Now Mike goes into The Internal Monologue of Exposition, otherwise known as the Plot Dump, otherwise known as Goddammit, Why Won't People Learn To Show, Not Tell. Who here ever read The Babysitter's Club books? Remember how the first chapter was always this big compilation of mini biographies of the characters, no matter how far into the series those books ever got? Even in book forty, we still had Claudia ranting about Mary Jane's hair and personality, and Dawn's vegetarianism, as if we hadn't read the whole fucking book series already.

Yeah. It's kind of like that.

Now, I'm not sure if people even think like this. I mean, if I am watching the news and I see George Bush come up, I'm probably going to think: "Oh, great, it's him." and change the channel, not wax poetic about his entire political career. But not Mikey. He thinks of Slash and all of a sudden his brain pipes in the whole story. It's like he turned into Mojo Jojo or something.

This line starts it off. It's hysterical, because it sounds like something straight out of another fandom.

"Right now, the two happened to be sparing, practicing their moves and trying to get stronger for when they face their new opponent, their enemy and everyone else: The enemy of the world, the galaxies, and heck the whole universe! He was one most renowned and feared...An alien, an invader who was known for taking over and even destroying other worlds."�

I'm sorry, my early anime geek days are taking over my motor controls. It's Dragon Ball Z, guys! THE TURTLES ARE ABOUT TO TAKE ON FRIEZA! A week in the room of Space and Time, Leo, and soon you'll be ready to become the ultimate ninja warrior! You'll sprout a matching blond hairdo and form an 80's hair band! Quick! Mike and Don, do the fusion dance!

Okay, okay, I'm sorry. That was a momentary lapse. So, Mike is still processing the great and terrible entity that is Slash, which basically sums down to: "He was a total super genius! Even better than Donny, boy wonder! Even greater than Stephen Hawkings! Better than Einstein and Steven Hawking's love child! Also, he kicks butt at fighting!" (Go on, Mike, you can go further. Talk about how he likes long, romantic walks on the beach and dancing in the rain.)

Of course, he has some bad qualities along with all that awesome. Such as being a total sociopath, criminal, genocidal monster. Mike continues to ponder at length how big of a jerkwad this guy really is. I mean, he even scares Raphael! He speaks in riddles like the Riddler! (WTF, really? Thank god he didn't have any speaking lines in this chapter, people who speak in actual riddles are the most nauseatingly annoying creatures on this Earth.)

In case the audience didn't get the point, we get MORE talk about just how evil Slash is. He's really evil. He's like, super evil. He's advanced evil. He's triple-decker evil con carne. The Christian population calls him Satan, although that's what they call Harry Potter, too, so let's not worry too much about that label.

We get a nice physical description that I care nothing about. It talks about how evil-looking Slash is. At this point, the audience comes out of its collective stupor and vaguely realizes that this Slash chap might just be a bad fellow. Not zesty at all.

So, after Michelangelo thinks about the greatest evil ever to terrorize humanity and other vaguely humanoid things, his mind turns itself to the next logical subject: his overwhelming need for love and attention. DUDE. You can't just give us a huge block of exposition about one thing, drop it like a molten potato, shrug, and move on to a completely different subject! Think about it! It's like this:

Gandalf: Sauron is a foul and dreadful adversary. The crimes he committed during the past great war are beyond comprehension and should not be uttered here. Only know that he will stop at nothing to retrieve the Ring and regain his former, dark power to reign again in Mordor.
Frodo: *wide eyes*
Gandalf: Arwen's new curtains are a lovely paisley color that I heard her maid picked out for her at the beginning of the month. They are as blue as the crystal streams of the mountain.
Frodo: ...

Yeah. Doesn't work.

Sigh. Michelangelo launches into one of the typical romance fanfic gripes. We'll call it: 'everyone else has had more sex than me.' Basically, it's when the main character bitches on and on about how everyone else has their special little someone, while they have no one. They're alone, you hear me? ALONE. Miserable. Bereft of company, they are left to darkly contemplate their loveless state. Mike is especially miserable because he feels betrayed by Don and Raph.

See, he had crushes on both, but the two of them eventually hooked up together. Mike describes their mutual love as 'his worst nightmare coming true' and states that just thinking about it makes him nauseous. He goes on in his wounded state to describe how betrayed he feels, he thought they loved him, even if they picked on him and sometimes said they wished he'd leave them alone for a while. All of these sound perfectly normal for brothers to do to one another, but you don't understand! HE'S STABBED THROUGH THE HEART. They had the gall to like each other romantically and not him! They don't love him because there's no such thing as platonic love! Blah blah me, blah blah blah, blah blah blah me me me.

Maybe, Mike, they didn't want to hook up with you because you're such a spoiled, selfish little brat.

So, he feels on the edge of a breakdown. If he does it, it had better be quick, I can't be bothered to read through five pages of this self-centered kid's whining. See, if that's what the author was going for, it'd be great. Show that the main character is an ignorant, whining jerk. However, I think that he's supposed to be sympathetic and we're supposed to believe that Raph and Don are just big meanies.

Moving on to the next bad fanfic trope in this collection: 'my happiness is pastede on, yay'. This is when the author decides to discard Mikey's typically happy, perky, smartass personality as nothing but an annoying facade. This Mike put on the mask of obnoxiousness merely because he felt like he failed completely at copycatting his brothers' skills, didn't bother to acquire any skills of his own, and basically became as obnoxious as possible to get the spotlight centered on him. He even shed some extra brain cells for the role.

Once again, I'm sitting here going: "Done well, that would be a pretty cool perspective." But no, we're still supposed to be all sympathetic and feel sorry for Mike hiding under a mask of his own construction.

Mike doesn't just want all the attention piled onto him. He also wants...love. That's right, dramatic pause love, better than just normal love. He feels completely unloved by all his brothers and by Splinter, because Splinter keeps giving him worried, stressful, and fearful looks. I...I...I've got nothing. This whole thing reads like a fourteen year-old rich kid who's whining because his parents won't buy him a shiny new Ferrari until he can actually drive it. SHUT UP, MICHELANGELO. WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR PAIN.

Time for the next step. So far, the brothers have been too tame and actually reasonable if you follow Earth!logic. This will never do if Mike is to look like the shining, pure angel figure in the rough! So, Donatello goes ballistic on Mike, telling him he's a whiny little bitch, (which is totally true in this fic), that he's tired of his whining, and that he's a useless liability that everyone hates. Great. Way to go and bitchify Don. What did he ever do to you? Anyway, we have Raph totally agreeing with this and basically giving Don a high five for catching the Jerk Flu. Leatherhead says they went too far, but no one cares. They read the script for this and know their place as snobby jerks.

Mike runs away as unwanted-yet-pure siblings are wont to do, and has this rambling epiphany that everyone despises him and thinks he's a screw-up and most of them have even said so to his face. Well, nothing to do but leave home!

Naturally, and probably much to his relief, Slash appears with knock-out gas and carries him away.

And there we have the first installment of this fic. Aside from the nightmarish moment of bastardry, I feel way more sympathy for everyone else in this fanfic than I actually do for Michelangelo. Mike freely admitted that his obnoxious act was completely purposeful, he knew he was being annoying, he went out of his way to be a bumbling screw-up, and now he gets to angst about the results? Michelangelo, The Boy Who Drives Everyone Insane And Yet Makes Himself The Victim. Great.

SO.MUCH.GOLD. *having Ivy awesomeness overload*........

*brain explodes*

Dude, the part about DBZ destroyed me, and the Ferrari bit? OMFG! Fucking hilarious.

I love this.

Aub

I'm reading this right now, and holy crud, there are so many things that just make me shudder...or giggle...

Like, since when did sweat 'pop'? Or what is this new form of ninja martial arts that Slash knows called Ninjitzu? Is it like Ninjitsu? *flails*

You have me wanting to read all these bad fics for myself just to see how bad they really are...>> I'm working my way up to the blended fics...oh dear Gods help me. *laughs*