So people have been asking us why we never review femme slash. Never being one to turn down a little girl-on-girl action, I headed to the Sapphic Slayer archive and came across someone with a cool username, Acidfaith. There is, it seems, a surplus of people in the Buffy fandom who put "Faith" and "Spike" in their usernames, but this one had some style. I don't know if Acidfaith is even involved in the fandom anymore, but that's not really the point.

This series is still in progress, but it's archived, so that spells "open season" to me. I don't know if it'll ever be finished. And it's not that this story is bad, or that it's not interesting, but it is in desperate need of a beta reader.

You are all using beta readers, right? The "get a beta reader" call has been issued in just about every fandom by now. I guess there are still people not using them because a) they can't find one or b) they're so anxious about posting their story that they can't be bothered to wait or c) they're new to the fandom and a little wet behind the ears. Or maybe Acidfaith used a beta reader, and it was a beta reader who could not find the fairly glaring grammatical errors in this story. Either way, this story needs a heavy grammatical overhaul.

It wasn't her fault, it never was, it was the world out to screw her as usual.

She sighed, who was she kidding, only herself it seemed, and it was getting harder and harder to even do that.

Here we have two sentences that should be seven. Each phrase between those commas should be its own sentence, as in "It wasn't her fault. It never was. It was the world out to screw her as usual. She sighed. Who was she kidding? Only herself, it seemed. And it was getting harder and harder to even do that."

The premise of this story doesn't suck. It's an alternate ending to the "Bad Girls" episode, and the summary says that it will "eventually" have an NC-17 rating. You click on the link and you get the author's note:

Yes, i know im delusional, we've all moved on, we know shes bad,well, not in my head, no sir,ha ha ha.(sorry about that)

At this point, you know there's going to be trouble. Given that the story isn't close to being as poorly spelled and punctuated as the author's note, you find yourself playing this "Did she or didn't she?" game in terms of whether she used a beta reader. Only Acidfaith knows. And if you did, sweetie, please get a new one. And if you didn't, please find yourself one. You need it. And there's nothing wrong with needing a beta reader. We all do. Keep writing and keep doing your thing, but before you post one more story, please find a beta reader.

As you read through the story, you are constantly faced with more loop-de-loop sentences that should have been broken up into several sentences, like "Faith felt her stomach roll over, she had to say something, she couldn't just let her leave,so she said the only thing she could." There are sentences that do not end with periods. There are contractions like "what's" that have no apostrophes. I'm not even going to get into plot and characterization.

And you know, I don't think Acidfaith is even on the Sapphic Slayer list anymore. I don't know if she's ever written anything beyond this first installment. A Google search on her turns up her story at the archive and a signature in a slam book. I'm just posting this because I want it to be yet one more time when I reiterate the point that made us even start this damn site.

Use.

A.

Beta.

Reader.

Thank you.

CABS grade: D