Since it's been a long time since I did the first of these, a bit of
explanation: This is me making belated, non-grammar/spelling type
commentary on my FFML backlog as I read through to clear some of it out.
The dates listed are the timestamp on the story as sent, and the author's
name (not always the same as the name field of the email - where different,
I use whatr the author puts as his or her name in the body) and the title
are listed for each, followed by a paragraph or two of my impressions while
reading and afterward. I don't do most Evafic because I detest the
original, nor anything with a [dark] tag, and in general anything from a
series I've never seen, the most notable being YYH, CCS, and Patlabor as
far as fics I've seen and skipped. If your story was in the timeframe
listed, but not commented on, that's three of several reasons it could have
happened, some others being that it was over 75k and I saved it to read
later on, it was the middle part of a series I dond't remember reading and
I saved it for sometime after I've had a chance to track down the
preceeding parts, or that while it may have been amusing I didn't hjave
anything worth saying about it. Anyway, to business!
7/23/02
Nicholas F Toledo Zu's _Age Doesn't Matter, Week 02: Mother's Milk_
A quick reaction from the previous chapters, found on the website:
BOGGLE... Ranma is insecure and emotional instead of insecure and
compensating, Akane just wants her big stuffed animal, Nabiki is a horndog,
and Kasumi is worse... Yeep! Those three extra years made a heck of a
difference, didn't they? Personally, I'd have to say that they haven't had
as much time to get their heads messed up... but that's a good thing,
because I'm liking them better than canon thus far. Ranma does seem to have
a talent for making innocent remarks that sound like blatant come-ons,
though, doesn't he?
I don't quite follow here this picks up from _Martial Arts_ though... did
Ranma zip off after Kasumi roped him in, or is this the next day, or what?
7/24/02
David Eddy's _Honorable Father_ prologue
An interesting beghinning. Are the Saotomes some sort of samurai house in
this version? Nodoka seems to be going it entirely alone in canon R1/2, but
you never see that much of her arrangements beyond a private home -
presumably distict from the clan compound you describe with integral
training facilities - the mere presence of which, and money enough to
rebuild when it gets destroyed, suggests she's got some hefty rescources of
one kind or another.
7/25/02 David Yellope's _Solo_ prologue
fairly standard 'Ranma gets sick of the crap' setup, save that he doesn't
seem to be planning to leave for good. I do question the idea that a Hiryu
Shoten Ha powered by all three fiancees would leave the house standing, let
alone the room intact with broken furnishings, but perhaps that was because
he didn't really spiral any, just threw the capstone punch. I think it
could safely be left a matter of comedic chance that "everyone landed on
something soft, luckily, a drift of cushions, the overturned couch, or
Genma's gut, except for Kuno. He landed on his head however, so no harm
done there." Something like that, anyway.
Rann Aridorn's _Ancestors_ 3
Heh... Kodachi takes the warnings of danger around the compound as
nothing... because compared to a house and grounds filled with traps and a
pet alligator, it IS nothing. I have to disagree with the notion that Ranma
and Ryoga, at tthe least, would really be vulnerable to fall damage, when
Ryoga smashes his own tunnels through solid rock regularly, and Ranma has
been punched by him into a cliff face hard enoguh to leave an imprint in
the stone, and jumped right back out to keep fighting. Then again, with the
speed of the Amaguriken, Ranma should be able to catch bullets and throw
them back at the shooter, so taking all of their canonical feats at face
value is perhaps intiviting overkill.
Ranma got disheartened looks from sitting in a one-person chair? But that
just means he wants his REAL fiancee to sit in his lap! Oh Ranma-sama,
you're so bold! Hands off, crazy woman! Aiya! Airen not snuggle with anyone
but Shampoo1 Grrrrr.... RANMA YOU PERVERT!! etc. What a missed opportuinity
to have the same old boring round about... oh, right.
Of course Teritha thinks they're children, even leaving out how they act,
she's an ELF. Compared to her, Ke Lon and Happosai are children.
I begin to get the feeling you like Kodachi, too. Good on yer.
7/26/02
Eternal Lost Lurker's _PLORT!_ ch2
MUahahahah! If only you knew how often I've wished I could make
freestanding holograms appear in the vicinity of vehicles... There's the
"I'm a moron who doesn't understand the concept of turn signals" to hang on
other people's cars, the "Shut your damn high beams off, I'm not speeding
up" to put over mine... MUAHAHAHAH! Lurker, I salute you!
7/27/02 Thryth's _Laid_ ch3
Yeep, quite the den of predators Ranma and Ayeka have stumbled into, isn't
it? Things show signs of heading for too-drunk-to-be-having-fun territory,
I'm afraid, or at least that's where the OCs seem to be trying to lead
them. Ranma and Ayeka getting into a drunken brawl and getting away, only
to find that they were too turned on despite it for their remaining
inhibitions to keep them from having some fun together is my current hope
for the plot.
7/28/02 Tannim Murphy's _Power Struggle_ ch1
Ah, another SI, and a minor deity in name as well as fact this time. Hey,
at least you're honest.. I just claim to be an Author, and if any more
explaination is needed, note that there's a stairway from outside the
Pearly Gates to the Author's Altiverse... and it goes down from both ends.
How? Well, you can do that kind of thing, when you're an Author...
The Spirit of Teflon Coated Cookware is a demon? Well, I suppose he leads
people astray from the One True Path of cooking everything in the
microwave.
Jim-Bob seems kind of an under-achieving name for a demon of annoying
rednecks... he should have at least five first names in a row, like
Billy-Bo-Jim-Bob-Joe. Bubba-Nick-Joe-Raph, Deadbeat Father of the Dark
Young, might also qualify, but is the wrong spirit in this case.
Oooh, a Demon Cab. Their rates are hellacious, I hear.
An intriguing setup, actually... I'd be tempted to try doing a little
something in it with you, but a) my standard avatar is too powerful to fit
in - he makes universes of his own just for kicks, and has a small base of
worshippers as a god of fertility/farming/springtime already, completely
accidentally; and b) I tend to get all excited about a project, become
involved in a mnajor way, and then my mojo moves to a different one and I
stall out on it for months or years. This has been known to be the kiss of
death on a couple of occasions, and I'm struggling not to be such again
right now in something else.
Ken Arromdee's _Iron_
Remember what I said about Eva fics last time? Well, this one also looks
like it would change the timeline enough not to suck, or at least has the
potential for it. It also reminds me rather strikingly of the first couple
episodes of Noir, as you noted in later conversation.
8/6/02
Thermopyle's _Bridge to Cephiro_ ch2
The first bit was an interesting setup, but this one really looks like
Hikaru is heading for the ultra-rare, girl who's a genuine, normal friend
to Ranma, rather than a rabidly obsessive love interest. Of course, having
the only two-way relationship with him means she's got a damn good chance
of catching his heart anyway...
I'm curious as to whether he'll be involved with the Cephiro side of things
all that much, or if they'll continue as downtime buddies, whose adventures
tend not to intersect - all the better to tell each other whoppers about
what those adventures actually were. Her rushing off with a cover story
that he later blows might be a rock in the path, but considering that he
still thinks of *Ryoga* as his friend despite ruccerrent death threats and
assaults, I don't think such things would be insurmountable.
8/8/02
Platypus 3333's _Avenel: Friday 1_
Okay, it's an original story, but still... the hell? Girl goes to school,
meets prick, follows him around, gets ditched, finds someone else to show
her around, goes to hangout, heads home, answers door in a towel to find
prick was sent over to bring a fruit basket and has forgotten about her.
Yeah, I can see how it's got some level of anime feel... but it doesn't
seem to have a purpuse to it. Introducing the characters is important and
all, but it's also a good idea to put some kind of plot hook in most if not
all parts, even... perhaps espescially... the first, so readers have a
reason to want to keep reading. I mean, if I want to know about foul
mouthed girls and annoying jerks who ignore them, I can listen to the
gossip in the college student center.
(At this point, my ISP went all wonky on me for a few weeks, then I got
distracted, and kept on gwetting distracted, and a semester came and went,
and I signed up for a couple of brain-eating summer session courses, and so
on... I haven't even been getting upstairs to check my email more than once
every two or three weeks lately, being too busy working on miscellaneous
crap. So, here it is, 8/16/02, and I'm at a one year backlog... Dammit,
let's do this thing!)
PsychoSama's _Awkward Consequences_ Ch 9a
It's got a bit of the "Ranma becomes a sensitive, caring luvbug after he
gets some" syndrome, but not so badly that I can't smile and nod and get on
with enjoying the story. Haruka's initial hostility fading slowly to
grudging acceptance is plausibly real, and while it would be nice if
occasionally a fictional one night stand that's the first experience of
both participants did NOT in fact result in a pregnancy, it's too much a
staple of the genre to complain all that hard about it. I do want to see
how this continues, but now that I've read some of it I can't understand
why on earth a prereader for one of my styories askdeed me if mine was
intended to be 'just another version' of this one - aside from being
Ranma/Hotaru there's really nothing similar about them.
Steve "Komodo" T's _Different, But Still the Same_ Ch1
Pardon me while I channel Lord Chaos... YOU GO SQUISH NOW, NEWT BOY!
Stereotype backwoods hicks and straight Sailor Moon are NOT two great
tastes that go great together. I'll give it a couple more chapters to draw
me in, though.
8/9/02
Donald McElreath's _The Sound of Silence_ Ch5
Not a whole lot to say about this one, except that Nabiki is sure to figure
out Ryoga being P-Chan fairly quickly, and that once she does Ryoga will
pretty much be her slave forever.
Rann Aridorn's _Happiness that Could Have Been_
[Washu] "Oh, come on, if I just wanted to do something unpleasant to you,
I have plenty of ranged instruments for that! Just put your hand here!"
This line broke me. THe rest of the fic... was kinda melancholy, but with a
hopeful ending, so it's good, as a short standalone. Since that's what it
is, all sereno. Running through the whole series with Achika in place of
Tenchi would probably not be as interesting as I think it would be from
seeing the glimpses here, but the fact that the6 make it seem like that
must again be counted as a success. Then again, being a Ryoko fan and (SD
puppet-girl pops up, holding a sign saying "Typical male pig") not at all
opposed to yuri or two-on-ones, maybe it would be.
8/10/02
Adrian Tymes' unnamed spamfic, subject RE: Ranma/sm fics
"The Houdini Samurai" ... I loved this. Even more, I would love to see an
adult, semi-competent Kuno interacting with the Sabers and blowing the
timeline all to hfil, the more so when one or two other ex-Nerimans show up
- preferably equally second-string or lower, I'd say, like a Gosunkugi
who's still no good at voodoo but is a capable PA pilot (he had one ordered
from the back of a comic book in the manga, until it self-destructed, and
fought Ranma to a standstill with it) or Tsubasa as an
information-gathering resource. There's a lot of things the Ranma cast
could be doing with a few years to shake them out of the eternal teenage
summer with a side order of obsession.
8/11/02
Adrian Tymes, untitled spamfic with the subject line, Re: [Ranma][Fanfic]
Sailor
Have you heard of the the single-panel, Family Circle-style webcomic called
The Ctuggles? If not, I reccopmend it... This also connects to Shubby-chan
of Magical Girl Hunters, Squidbob 'Thulupants from Dork Tower, and that
Scooby Doo/mythos crossover .... thing ... where the gang is all replaced
by Mythos characters and have some rather different reactions to the guy in
the cheesey monster suit. The only two I specifiaclly remember the names
used were Cthuly Lu and Tsaggy (Tsagothua) and that the spooky butler who's
actually innocent was Abdul Al Hazared...
Okay, I'm bushed. Loading torpedo tube one...
END OF LINE
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