----- Original Message -----
From: Chester Castaņeda <gab_ab@edsamail.com.ph>
To: FFML <ffml@fanfic.com>
Cc: Hans Holm <hansholm@bredband.net>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 9:12 PM
Subject: [FFML] [SLR Newbie Patrol][MST3k](fanfic)(Ranma) Night Thoughts (again)
ffml-bounce@fanfic.com wrote:
Here we go again:
FIRST FANFIC ALERT! (still)
Chester: Aww gahd... duty calls (sigh)
;^_^;;: (Kurama) Yeah... as if you have something else to do. Suuure, we believe ya.
C: Shut up, yaoi-boy.
^_^x: (Kenshin) Ohaiyo, minna! Just said that to be introduced ^o^x
; _ ;;: Not my fault they keep featuring me in Yuyu yaois! It's not like Kuwabara and Yusuke doesn't to have something going on in the series...
(random rabid shonen-ai otaku): Oh yeah sure... we _wanna_ read that... ewww, you put images in my head...
C: (shuddering) Let's stop this....
^_^x: OOOON with the fic!
<<snippage throughout>>
I suppose I can't avoid asking for C & C. This has not been pre-read,
spell-checked or fact-checked, but includes some very minor changes.
C: Nice. I coulda used that excuse for my first fic...
^_^x: C&C or bust, they say.
Finally, a few words on the fic:
C: (sigh) It's been said a million times, we should put a number on it.
;^_^;;: Like, ya. So, like, y'know... you just hafta put this author -thingee in the end, 'coz, like, y'know, you can be such a BRAIN when you put this up front. I mean, like totally, this, like, makes up for major brainfreeze.
You obviously didn't read the original badly formatted version.
THAT ONE had a long introduction.
~_~x: Eeewww... who replaced you with Kirsten Dunce?
;^_^;;: (cheering, with pom-poms) ~I'm sexy, I'm cute... I'm popular to boot!~
C: ......... and with the next comment...
This has been lurking at the back of my head for a long time. It
should probably be considered a prologue/character introduction for
a longer series, but I have no clear idea of where to go from here.
Actually, now that I have it in a "tangible" form, so to say, I've
got some ideas (of the kind that anybody who reads it would get), but
more on this after the story. If anyone wants to take over they are
welcome to do so, but please tell me before you do. Also, it began as
an Evangelion crossover (of the "the Children gets stranded in the
past"-variety) but that element was so contrived that I dropped it.
C: All this could be well placed on the end... it hurts, but the readers care usually more about the fic than this, so they usually skip these parts.
Is anybody still reading this?
;^_^;;: Depends. Are you a republican, or a democrat?
I'm from Sweden, so whatever major party I would choose (from the conservatives
to the left) makes me a godless communist from an American perspective.
^_^x: Ask a stupid question...
C: Get a stupid question?
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 etc. does not belong to me, but to Rumiko
Takahashi and others whom I can't quite remember at the moment. I
merely use them for what might be a blatant copyright infringement
or possibly is acceptable under the fair use doctrine. Since most
new characters can trace their origin back to the copyright above,
I probably can't claim any rights to them either.
I'm sorry about the footnotes (below), but they didn't quite fit
into the main text.
C: (author) And if we have these author notations and footnotes a little more longer, and we can make a fic out of it.
^_^x: "Adventures of Hans Holm... also self-deconstruction of a typical Newbie Fanfic by a Newbie fan 101"
Define Newbie. I've read Ranma since 1993 (part 2 # 11), but linguistic shortcomings (failing to learn Japanese)
has prevented me from reading all I want to.
However this is the first work of fiction I've written since early 1993.
C: (sigh) Kurama-san, please?
;^.^;;: (ahem) Typical... and I mean typical... newbie tendency... making footnotes. Highly unrecommended.
As I said I couldn't think of a better way.
Night Thoughts
A Ranma 1/2 fan fiction by Hans Holm
Lin Lin was pondering the injustice of it all. Ever since she and
Ran Ran had been relocated, not entirely unwilling, to Japan she
had developed a habit of making lists and so she was mentally a list
^_^x: Avoid repetitions in the same sentence, or repetitions in the same paragraph... they're highly repetitive, these repetitions...
C: Another thing... "she was mentally a list?"
I was pretty sure there was yet another repetition in that bit before.
;^_^;;: (psychiatrist) Now, now Ms. Lin Lin... repeat after me... you are not a list... you are not a list...
of all the injustice she was subjected to. The current number one
was the fact that, since Mousse was home from university, she had to
sleep in Ran Ran's room. Even if he was getting an degree that would
greatly benefit the village if he should return(1), she couldn't see
why he had to get his old room back for the week instead of sleeping
in a cage like he used to do when it was Lin Lin and Ran Ran who did
the visiting.
C: (narrator) *... gasp...* *... gasp...* *... pant...*
^.^x: Sentence is too long, Holm-san. Suggest breaking it up into smaller, easier-to-read sentences.
Unfortunately, I have only two modes of writing: subjective predicative period or or these huge
unwieldy sentences with lots of subordinate clauses, referring back to previous subordinate clauses
(and then necessitating parentheses or footnotes to remind the reader what the sentence was about originally).
Even if he wasn't cursed any longer.
(1) It was generally considered a win-win situation. The village
would benefit either from Mousse returning and using his knowledge
for the good of the village (even if noone was quite sure of
what he was studying) or from Mousse deciding to not to return.
;^_^;;: I dun see why you dun need to simply put it as a new paragraph to add to the narration. 'Sides, things need to be expounded.
C: Or include it in the paragraph then break it up properly... Mousse part shoulda been a starter for the second paragraph.
^.^x: If the footnote almost takes half of the fic, you know there's something wrong. The footnotes are more distracting this way.
The second, which was normally number one,
^.^x: The footnote or the fact?
was that Ran Ran had
developed a number of bad habits since they moved to Japan.
;^,^;;: Gee, they're getting so many habits, ne? Perhaps "Ran Ran was also developing a number of bad habits, like her sister." Y'know, Lin Lin? The one who mentally made lists on the number of injustices she's getting?
In Lin Lin's opinion she hasn't developed any bad habits
The
current leader of these were snoring.
^.^x: Umm... a bit akward. Suggest simply stating that 'one of these was snoring' 'coz it sounds better to mine ears.
True.
Ran Ran's snoring was so loud
that they reverberated throughout the Nekohanten, and
C: which
led Lin Lin to
the conclusion that Ran Ran was snoring willfully to annoy her and keep
her from sleeping. It was also quite obvious that she only snored
this loudly when Lin Lin was either a) sharing a room with her, or
b) having a test first thing in the morning.
;^_^;;: Cute, but I suggest getting rid of these a.) and b.)s. This is formal text, and informal stuff like the aforementioned tend to stick out like a sore thumb.
Like trying to squeeze in everything from the footnotes in the main text.
Another of Ran Ran's
newly acquired bad habits was that of not having to wear glasses.
^_^x: That's not a habit.
It is when you're making a list of your twin sister's bad habits and you need
glasses but she doesn't.
;^_^;;: That's a choice made by smart people...
I know, that's why I keep mine on.
C: (bespectacled teen) HEY!
Lin Lin, on the other hand, had to and now had to deal with people's
assumption that she was Mousse's little sister and also subjected to
almost daily insinuations of sado-masochistic tendencies(2).
C: .......
;^,^;;: Even the darned footnote didn't quite explain that...
Sorcerer Hunters, maybe?
Considering how little people need to announce any pig-tailed redhead as
Ranma-chans identical twin, anybody with long red/pink hair and glasses
obviously looks identical too Tira Misu.
Other people have remarked on the occasional similarities between Carrot Glace
and a wet Pantyhose Tarou.
In my opinion Tira Misu is also a good candidate for what a daughter of Mousse's
could look like if the mother supplied the red/pink hair.
Other
bad habits that Ran Ran had developed included cutting her hair
(Lin Lin still had the "official Chinese Amazon girl"- hairstyle),
;^.^;;: (Usagi) Mou! Odango's are also a choice hairstyle among magical girls!
^_^x (Sasami, nodding in approval, carrying a book on "How to dress for success, a handy guide for the typical Magical Girl")
Don't give me any ideas.
making friends with the popular kids at school, going to a lot of
parties and clubs and, Lin Lin suspected,
C: 'as Lin Lin suspected,'
behaving in a way unbecoming
of a Chinese Amazon. Even if she herself wasn't strictly following all
Amazon rules anymore, or rather wouldn't if she got he chance and
wasn't busy with training, school, homework and waitressing, she felt
that the defeated-by-outsider-male rule was the really main point of
the whole moving to Japan deal.
^,^x: Er... I think that should go as 'moving-to-Japan deal' I could be wrong (shrugs)
You're probably right.
Which brought her to number three
on the list:
boys.
C: So far, you piqued up my interest, Hans. The premise of your story isn't half bad.
;^_^;;: And since you're using characters that are quite neglected by the Ranma fanfic community, chances are you might have actually made a first ever one-of-a-kind Ranmafic!
>From a copyright point of view the safest Ranma fanfic you could write
(except for things like Macho Caballo(?), which doesn't really need the fanfic tag)
would be about two wandering martial artists called Natsume and Kurumi.
^_^x: WAI!
(2) For some reason these tended to peak every time Tarou showed
up in the neighborhood
C: Won't go there... won't ask why... ignorance is bliss...
When Shampoo was sixteen, Nerima was swarming with eligible martial
artists. The current crop of Nerman boys couldn't punch their way out
of an extra-strength garbage bag (and most of them probably couldn't
out-think it either).
C: I would suggest simply taking the parenthesis so that the notes would better flow with the story (same with the godddarned footnotes).
^.^x: Nerman boys? That connotes a lotta things...
That should be Neriman, but then again...
;^.^;;: Like geeky, Gosunkugi-like creatures...
The martial artists, and even the non-martial
artists, of "the Ranma era",
;^.^;;: Ooh, we've created an era!
I had to call it something.
^_^x: (Lin Lin) You _wanna_ be a suitor? Humph... your style may have been okay during this era, but had you gone out during the Ranma era, you would have been malleted.
C: (Saitoh) Words to live by...
that Lin Lin was familiar with was
Mousse, who had given up on Shampoo
and was pointedly attending another university, denied having a
girlfriend, but according to Nabiki and Kuno(3), there was a girl
who dragged him to parties and movies, got him to pay for those movies
(and dinner) and, rumour said, had been known to wake up in the same
bed.
C: 'Course we are talking about Mousse here... y'know, the 'blinder than a dingbat' boy?
;^_^;;: (girlfriend) Wai, Mousse-sama! Ai shiteiru...
^,^x: (Mousse, seemingly oblivious to girlfriend standing near him) That voice... there it goes again...
Ryoga was married to Akari and the "okyonomaki-guy" was still a
girl. The list went on and on. If Lin Lin had known that the current
crop of eligible martial artists in Nerima had been virtually
non-existent, she would have stayed in the village even if this meant
the perpetual risk of losing to someone from the Musk dynasty and daily
exposure to Feng Feng. Feng Feng had been OK when they were kids,
but since puberty he had been increasingly trying, much like a
second-rate Mousse without the latter's good points (like martial
arts skill and chasing someone other than Lin Lin).
C: Lovely premise.
^_^x: Nerima: The New Generation
Yes, except that The New Generation gives the impression (and has already been used)
of the Ranma cast's children.
;^_^;;: Of course, we are just reading this as we c&c, so we could be wrong with the premise thing as we finish the whole thing.
all: *sigh*
(3) Or, as they were now generally referred to Nabikiandkuno.
The so-called Superglue-incident might have had something
to do with this.
C: wtf?
;^.^;;: Dun look at me... I'm an innocent kitsune.
^_^x: Again, this coulda been introduced and expounded as yet another paragraph... if it breaks the flow of the above text so much, then mention it in the paragraphs having an obviously flashback theme.
C: So far, all is good. It's the usual "what happened after the usual in Nerima," but with a twist. I'm hoping that Lin Lin and Ran Ran aren't relegated in the background as I am interested in their developments presently. If ever, the whole thing in Lin Lin's viewpoint has been a refreshing change from the recurring cliche' I see in fanfics.
It wouldn't be much point of this as a prologue/character introduction if Lin Lin and Ran Ran wasn't major
characters.
Feng Feng was at that very moment sneaking off the ship on which
he had stowed away in order to get to Japan.
*_*x: Whoah... sudden shift in point of view...
;@o@;;: Gee, like, totally psychedelic man!
C: Eherm... what they _meant_ to say was put in a kind of line separator so as to indicate a shift in scene. And no, the 'at this moment' does not make it count as in the same scene.
^.^x: (peeking ahead of the fic) Oooh boy... there are 12 footnotes, and we're only done with 3
C: This is gonna be a looong night.
Or at least he tried to.
Unfortunately, at that moment a beautiful girl passed by and
Feng Feng's nature yet again got the better of him, only to get him
hammered into the ground.
^_^x: tee-hee... a fanfic tradition!
To Feng Feng this was only a temporary, if
frequently occurring setback, and as he climbed out of the
Feng Feng-shaped hole he reflected on his good luck.
C: Lemme get this straight, Hans... Feng Feng, the adolescent Happossai?
More lika Ataru, I think.
^.^x: Where his hormones are existent?
;^.^;;: And raging?
(collective shudder from girls everywhere)
Barely off the
ship and already the girls were throwing themselves over him. It was
obviously a good omen, and somewhere in this city were Lin Lin . . .
and Ran Ran . . . and Shampoo . . .
C: ... see that? Y'see the ellipses I'm using... that's right, no spaces in between '...'
That's how I normally do it too. But I got confused by a recent discussion on the
FFML. I wouldn't have made that mistake if SOMEONE hadn't started a
discussion on the subject.
and lots of other girls who were
not necessarily better at martial arts than he was. Well they would
have been if he had stowed away on a ship bound for Tokyo and not
Manila, but he didn't know that and one of four isn't that bad(4).
C: Gee, he's comin' over here? ^_^
(4) And he's bound to make his way to Tokyo eventually.
C: In my humble opinion, that need not be stated.
^_^x: Show, not tell.
The previously mentioned girl
^_^x: So you see, you need not say 'the previously mentioned girl' if you only broke up the flow as the scene shifted to Feng Feng's POV.
;^_^;;: I see your problem here... you're cramming, as much as possible, so many things in one narrative. I really, really recommend not to do that.
C: If you shift views, it's either you go into another scene or put the 'shift' in your ealier POV. that way, there is less confusion.
was also unaware of her actual location
at the moment, but this wasn't that unusual. Ryosei Hibiki
C: Whoopsie. Now I'm confused.
;^_^;;: He shifted the view to a so-called Ryosei... sorry, earlier, we thought the 'aforementioned female' was Lin Lin. Our mistake.
If it had been Lin Lin, she would have been refered to by name.
^.^x: Though that could have been avoided by the proper use of 'shifting views' in fics. Sorry, but a while ago it was totally from Lin Lin's POV, then these smaller ones came in. It's all so confusing.
It should go without saying that Ryosei's brother, Ryoma Hibiki, was
nowhere near Manila.
C: (narrator) But I'll say it anyways, so there!
;^.^;;: Gee, does that mean Ryosei's in Manila?
Feng Feng is in Manila, sees a girl (Ryosei) and gets hammered into the ground by said girl.
Logically Ryosei has to be in Manila in order to hammer Feng Feng into the ground.
He was currently just outside Sapporo (but he
thought he was on Okinawa)
^,^x: Apparently, the 'lost' gene occurs in the male side of the family...
The second person mentioned in the previous paragraph,
C: This is the second time, Hans...
^,^x;: We already told ya...
was currently
sleeping happily. After years of badgering, whining and puppy-dog
eyes
C: Put in a comma.
her family, and more importantly her cousin, had given in.
Tomorrow she was going to Tokyo and, as long as she didn't neglect
her schoolwork, help her cousin's assistent/not-boyfriend-honestly
take care of her restaurant. With a little luck her cousin would be
able to take some time off her studies to train her and most
importantly: since Ryomas cousin apparently used to hang around a
lot it was surely only a matter of time before Ryoma himself
turned up. Fortune was indeed smiling on Haruka Kuonji.
^^x;;: Hoo-boy...
;^^;;: Yay. More new characters to keep track of.
There is a distinct lack of canon Ranma characters to use if you want to
subject Lin Lin and Ran Ran to the kind of thing Ranma & co went through.
C: I see your problem. Notes below.
Half a world away, in London, another person were almost as happy
as Haruka. Most people would have been terrified at the thought of
moving to the Tokyo Kuno Mansion(6), but Shunnichiro Gilbert
Sullivan Kuno was not most people(7).
C: Er... yeah. Suggest: " ...was not any ordinary person." Real akward, that 'people' thing.
He was actually looking forward
to living with what Kunologists
C: ?
^_^x: You can't believe that the author can make this much fanfic inventions?
C: ... no, I can't believe there are actually people up to the job of studying the Kunos...
His head had already been shaved for
years, so his hair wouldn't interfere with the wig, and once he
started to seriously plan this he had taken every opportunity to eat
what Grandaunt Agatha, a great admirer of classical English murder
mysteries and poison murderers in general, offered and believed he had
built up the requisite immunities. It would be good to move somewhere
where the Kuno name was respected(9).
C: (narrator) *... gasp... * *... pant...* the author hates me...
Wimp.
You need to to work on your lung capacity.
;^_^;;: Oh gee... we had problems with Annoying New Characters..
Yes
You were warned in the notes at the beginning.
That's what they're for.
^_^x: So why not make a whole bunch of them?
;^_^;;: It isn't that your characters are annoying, but... scroll down below.
<<major snipage>>
C: Dun worry... we read it all
;@.@;;: Oh god... did we _read_ it all...
*.*x: oro!
END (for now)
This is deliberately vague, as detailed descriptions of the characters
would have broken whatever flow there is (I tried).
C: (sigh) Actually... the flow was good the first few characters (namely Lin Lin), so the problem lies on the fact that so many shifts in view warrant, well, a shift in scene. Just to avoid unneccesary "the second aforementioned character before the latter off the former"
I have some ideas,
available on request.
I've somehow gotten the impression that Kazumi is a name that both men
and Women can have. I'm not sure why.
^^x;: Another thing... point? At first this came out to us rahter like a Lin Lin-Ran Ran fic, where they are the new protagonists (more or less) that are now making trouble in the Nerima region. Then it became relatives galore, from Kuno to Dojo Destroyer. On the latter, I reiterate... point? It seems to me that the premise was taken to overdrive that it all just became... a cesspool.
Actually the original point of this, as explained AT LENGTH, in the original post (the one where everybody
wrote to point out that the formatting was horrible), was that due to a sudden development in my
Master's thesis (see below), namely the sudden appearance of the question of self-regulating in the fanfic
community, resulted in an actual need of getting the views of fanfic authors'/readers', which had previously
been more of a sidetrack. As I hadn't gotten any answer from the moderators on whether I could post the
questions without getting banned (possibly because the e-mail never showed up at their end), I resorted to this.
You have my deepest apologies for any inconvenience.
(I maintain, however, that asking for volunteers to answer questions privately is no different to
requests for prereaders.)
I don't know the Dojo Destroyer's last (or first) name and consequently
Tsukumo is familynameless (for now).
Somebody has claimed that the Phoenix Tribe characters' names come from
Indian dishes, hence Tandoori.
As for continuing this, there's a glaring lack of an obvious "main
couple" a la Ranma and Akane.
It should be obvious that Kazumi And Lin Lin will run into each other,
hard, making both late for school. Whether this counts as a defeat by
an outsider is up to whoever wants to continue this.
;^.^;;: I see. You're having trouble continuing this. Small wonder... too many characters! Character overload... and the excessive characters are pointless. Stick to the Ran Ran and Lin Lin duo, while introducing the background characters _as_ the story progresses.
Well, if it actually gets continued it's going to take a while for everybody to show up.
Don't worry.
C: And there is where the problem lies... you put in one chapter what the whole Ranma series had to put in so many volumes of manga and so many seasons of anime... relaxation is what you need, man! A few good introductory and _relevant_ characters and their respective POVs are enough.
Finally, as only one person has admitted to getting this far last time:
I am currently writing my Master's thesis on Copyright and fan fiction
(mainly whether it is possible to deal with it in a way that makes
everybody happy - protecting the original authors' rights while
allowing fan fiction authors to write and distribute (e.g. on the FFML)
without the risk of being sued). As it is bad manners to assume that
everybody else shares your own views, I thought that it might be useful
to find out about other fan fiction authors'/readers' views on the
matter. So ask yourself: Do I really want Slacker's views (I won't tell
you what they are) on this matter to be the ones that are spread to
"the general public"? (No offence meant to Slacker.)
C: Speaking of relevant... ^.^;
;^_^;;: We-ll, he is considerate... posting this on a fic instead of on the mail
^^x: But he HAS got to be kiding if there are that many people who would get to this after his fic...
People have
If you're interested e-mail me (hansholm@bredband.net), and I'll
send you the questions that I have managed to compose. I don't need
to tell you to reply to this PRIVATELY, do I.
C: Question mark over there.
^^x: Do you need to c+c even on the author notes?
No, I need people who are willing to answer questions on their views on copyright and
fan fiction, as two people (one of whom is yourself) is insufficient material to base
any assumptions on.
C: Hey, I'm trying to start a trend.
Thank you.
C: Er, you're very welcome. Wonderful premise here... too bad you have indicated that you won't be continuing this. Nerima: New Generations... not a bad concept at all.
If the public demands it I'll have to continue. (But then again, the public has to get
through this first).
Unless I get a sudden flash of inspiration and a name for the series.
^_^x: The excess characters were an... eheh... excess, not actually putting much on the plot, but they could be introduced _one at a time_ during the course of the fic, if ever.
Which is what will happen it it is continued, but then it's going to need a title.
;^_^;;: Finally... little grammar mistakes and the goddarned footnotes... get rid of them. Also, the shift of POVs demand a shift in scenes... a sort of divider for scene one, two, three... c'mon, you see them everyday in other fics, ne? Read 'em!
C: Well, that's it for this week in the SLR Newbie Patrol... good fight, and good night!
;^,^;;: (shaking head) I can never get most of his jokes.
^,^x: At least you try, Kurama-san.
Ja!
C. Castaņeda
S. Minamino
K. Himura
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