----- Original Message -----
From: "Sebastian Palm" <sebastian.palm@myrealbox.com>
To: <ffml@anifics.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 8:21 AM
Subject: [FFML] Re: [Fanfic][Ranma/SM] Relatively Absent: Chapter 5
(part 1 of 2) ...
-----Original Message-----
From: ffml-bounce@anifics.com [mailto:ffml-bounce@anifics.com] On
Behalf
Of Thermopyle
Sent: den 12 november 2003 11:10
To: Draqensis@aol.com; ffml@anifics.com; gaijin@sfcmd.com
Subject: [FFML] Re: [Fanfic][Ranma/SM] Relatively Absent: Chapter
5 (part
1 of 2) ...
----- Original Message -----
From: <Draqensis@aol.com>
To: <ffml@anifics.com>; <gaijin@sfcmd.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 3:35 AM
Subject: [FFML] Re: [Fanfic][Ranma/SM] Relatively Absent: Chapter
5
(part 1 of 2) ...
Just my two cents.
And mine are: You (Thermopyle) should go reread the whole thing,
before
spewing up such a massive amount of invective. It's unbecoming.
Okay, while it's fine to make out like Ranma is such a poor
pathetic
little creature who is so put upon that it would make even the
darkest
gods weep, it really doesn't work here. The story makes out
like
Ranma
is experiencing extreme trauma, yet tries to make out like
this is
the
exact same Ranma we all know and love from the first 24
volumes of
the
manga--the Ranma who would blow all this new 'trauma' off as
nothing.
Well, which is it? He's a pathetic, emotional wreck, or he's
the
character from the manga? You can't use both. If he's a
pathetic,
emotional wreck, well, why the hell is the backstory the same
as
for
the original Ranma?
The most time Ranma has ever been stuck in girl form before was
during the
Phoenix pill incident - which we have only guesses as to how long it
was.
The metaphysics of the situation are also under debate - I could
interpret
the effects of the pressure point as being that Ranma would change
back to a
boy - then revert immediately (such as when he fell into the hot
bath after
getting the lemon drop, in which case he wasn't stuck at all). If
so, then
Ranma never spent more than a day or two as a girl at a time.
Going with this assumption, we come to the situation with Herb -
Ranma gets
locked, and chases after Herb towards Horaizan. Suppose this takes a
few
days - we have no official word, IIRC. Then the day of the fight,
plus a day
under the mountain, and another two or three at the house - at least
a week
total since he changed, and by now there's been plenty of time for
the
changed hormones which never showed before to become apparent. Good
enough?
So your take is that women are weepy?
I disagree. My interpretation only of course, but IIRC Ranma's
ability to
deal with failure has never been developed beyond going after an
obvious
solution. (admittedly I ahven't read all the manga so there may
be
an example I am
unaware of) Here he doesn't have a clear target to chase to
solve
the problem so
there reaction might be lesss positive. Granted it's a bit
cliche in
fanfiction for this sort of thing to hit Ranma hard but that's
not
to say it can't be
used again.
Hm. I'm not really sure what the failure you're referring to is.
He
won the fight against Herb, didn't he? The fic cites physical and
emotional trauma as being Ranma's problem, but he's been close to
dying a number of times before. For emotional trauma, he's been
stuck
as a girl before, and Eiko has a cure coming right up, so that's
not
really an issue, either.
Eiko said that he'd always be a girl for real - that the male form
would be
a disguise. That, while it might look like a cure, isn't really one,
and for
some people there's a difference.
Heh. Really? Okay, I'll go with that, then. Although I do have to
say that with Eiko on Ranma's side, it's pretty goddamn unlikely that
he couldn't be cured. I mean, Eiko's forever old and Ranma's going to
have plenty of time to work with Eiko. Why the hell can't he reinvent
the unlocking kettle? It had to be invented at some point. Ranma can
presumably look backwards in time to find out about such things,
right? I mean, UbEr EbIl Plooto has all these time-watching related
tricks, shouldn't Ranma be able to get something out of that?
*The situation was quickly becoming intolerable, yet there was
almost
nothing more Eiko could do at the moment. It was really quite
irritating.*
Yeah, it is. if Eiko was so pissy about the stuff Pluto was
doing,
why
didn't she tell Pluto that? But no, Eiko sits in silence for a
few
THOUSAND YEARS and then gets pissed and goes to talk to
somebody
completely different. Yeah, that's the way to go. Eiko doesn't
have a
single reason to bitch.
Why Eiko couldn't get Pluto to acknowledge her - by shouting
into
her ear for
a month or so non-stop perhaps? - needs to be explained. I can
think
of a
couple of possibilities but it is a plot hole that needs to be
addressed.
Hell, Eiko probably could have been able to make big letters
appear in
the surface of the Gates, or something. Regardless, Eiko has no
right
to bitch about Pluto not doing what Eiko wanted her to do if Eiko
just
sat around and did nothing for so long. At the very least, Eiko
could
have searched for a new guardian any time after her old guardian
died.
Pluto turned Eiko's I/O off - Eiko says so when it talks to Ranma in
chapter
one. Only Pluto being "dead" allowed Eiko to circumvent the
lockout -
referred to as "emergency command override" in the next half of the
chapter.
That really doesn't mesh with Pluto's thinking that the gates are
nonsentient at the end of this chapter.
[many words and sentences and paragraphs of Ranma's modified
family
history.]
Umm...does this stuff matter? It's not interesting. I don't
CARE.
Unless the family history and great samurai lineage nonsense
is
going
to make a difference in the fic (so far there are no
indications
of
this being the case) there is no reason for it to be here.
I rather liked that part. It explains a certain amount about the
family
relationships and does so in character voice rather than author
voice.
Hm. While that may be true, it doesn't contribue anything to the
plot. Actually, all those ANCs don't really contribute anything,
either. Unless the girls are going to end up as Ranma's knights
or
something after Eiko decides to give him some, there's no need for
so
many of them running around.
It gives us setup for a resolution for the fianc�e mess, and Ranma's
parents. I've got a pet theory, which I'm not sharing...
Yes, but it's overly complicated and so far there's been nothing to
justify it. Hell, Ranma just being locked as a girl resolves the
fiancee situation, so that's automatically fixed. For the parents...
what really needs to be fixed? Why does the fiancee situation really
need to be fixed? Ranma is going to be 'cured' soon enough anyway, so
there's no reason for things not to go back to normal if Ranma wishes
it. Intervention from some third party to 'fix' things usually just
ends up with ANCs who want to solve all the problems the author sees.
In this fic, that certainly seems to be the case. Instead of real
characters, all we get is a bunch of Ranma-supporters whose existences
seem to revolve around remaking Ranma's life in the author's image.
*--- Juuban ---*
This should read as:
MEANWHILE, somewhere in JUUBAN, in an UNSPECIFIED PLACE
without
WALLS
or FLOORS or a CEILING or ANY OTHER SETTING CLUES... THINGS
ARE
HAPPENING to UNSPECIFIED PEOPLE.
Maybe which part of Juuban it is doesn't matter. It's the bit
with
Usagi, Ami
and Makoto in it.
Um. You didn't get the point. They could have been in school.
They
could have been outside. They could have been on the moon eating
green eggs and ham. There's no way for the reader to know where
they
are, what they're doing, or who all is there. It's the fictional
equivalent of putting the reader in a dark room and then having
speakers' faces light up as they announce their presence by
talking.
It's very bad writing.
Considering how much you were harping about unnecessary filler - do
we
really need to know anything else than that Ami got questioned on
her
findings, and didn't have any (or whatever)?
No. There were a number of other scenes that I didn't make that
comment for that felt unnecessary, actually. Hell, even being told
that Ami found nothing is unimportant. It could have been cut
completely. As it is, there's no sense of conflict in the scene. It
reads like "The senshi searched and searched, but found nothing."
It's actually a major problem the story has--lack of real conflict.
Sure, there's people hitting each other, but there's no central
conflict that the story revolves around. That's probably why there's
so much filler and useless crap--lack of focus.
[scene with lots of personality-less ANCs fighting each other
for
no
apparent plot or character-related reason. Ranma becomes
Sensei
God of
the Cliche Alignment.]
...Why?
Um, they're being assessed? By their teachers? And Ranma's
opinion
is asked
because he's quite a good martial artist?
They're ninja girls, not martial arts girls. They should go bug
Konatsu for lessons, wherever he is. Anyway, the problem isn't so
much that as that it adds nothing to the story to have Ranma
teaching
them. It's just an extremly overused, and in this case quite
gratiutous bit of nonsense.
The problem here is the definition of ninja - I've yet to read a
story in
which ninja are portrayed historically. Ninja weren't combat
masters - they
were a combination of actor, parlor magician, and chemist. If the
enemy is
blinded by smoke or a flash of light, they won't be able to defend
against
even a novice with an appropriate weapon. Ukyo and Konatsu are close
to
being ninja, but not quite there.
I'm not sure how this is a reply to what I or the other person said...
*Incorrect. Sailor Pluto was attempting to bring about a
certain
sequence of events which would have killed nearly the entire
population, but a select few would have been protected and
preserved.*
Oooh! I've never seen THAT before! I mean, wow, Pluto as being
the
creator of Crystal Tokyo! I never knew that was in the manga
or
anime!
I never knew it was her fault! Let's all blame Pluto!
That notion is indeed non-canon. OTOH, so is pretty much all
fanfiction. It's
cliche but so are a lot of otherwise very good fics.
It's easy to see where the whole thing comes from, though. Pluto can
see
timelines through the gates. Pluto can change timelines based on
foreknowledge. Pluto is charged by Serenity to find a way to bring
either
the Senshi or the Moon Kingdom back, OR Pluto, in despair after the
Moon
Kingdom falls, looks for a replacement. She finds the "Crystal
Tokyo"
timeline, and decides to work towards it. Then Chii-Usa comes along,
and it
becomes a matter of priority to prevent a paradox - since there have
been
travellers from a certain future, that future needs to happen, or
else.
Sure! That's great! But there's only problem--it's NOT IN THE STORY!
All we get is the standard 'Pluto's fucking with the timelines, she's
an evil bitch!' explanation. There's no attempt to characterize Pluto
at all. Pluto's conflict--the desire to fix the world population
level, apparently--is never addressed. She's not real in the story at
all, except maybe at the end of the chapter and even then not much
effort is put into giving her a personality.
Oh, I have no problem with cliches. I don't really consider
something
cliche unless it's tossed into a fic without any attempt to back
it
up. He doesn't even try to characterize Pluto or make her drive
to
create CT real. All the fic has is tons of Pluto bashing because
she's so obviously wrong obsessed and evil etc. It's just a
ripoff of
every other fic out there that uses the idea. Hell, the whole
fight
scene (Key's effects included) feels ripped straight out of
Destiny's
Child.
I really need to reread that one...
Well, after reading this, I'm not sure you need to... ^_^;
*"My HUSBAND would not have engaged my son and daughter to a
violent
maniac from an honorless family of eta."*
Hm. This part has been done before, though not as often as
with
having
Ranma be eta. The idea itself is as cliche as it gets, but at
least
it's used in a not-quite-overused way. It's an interesting
thing
to
throw in the fic at this point, though, when the story is
clearly
not
about the Tendous or Ranma's relationship with them. So,
basically,
the Tendous are being bashed for no reason except to bash
them.
The
story does not revolve around the conflict introduced with
this
comment. It's a waste of electric ink.
I think Nodoka's being insulting here (very insulting IIRC)
rather
than
actualy saying something about the Tendo's actual family status.
Yeah. Somebody else told me that's how they read it, too. It
could
be either one--I don't have any trouble believing that he decided
to
make them burakumin just for the hell of it.
My take is that she calls them Eta for their treatment of Ranma, as
relayed
by the anonymous video cassette. Remember, she's acting not on the
whole
truth.
Right.
*The continual failures were wearing her down as well; she
required
more and more time between each attempt to recover even a
small
part
of her strength. Unfortunately, there was little else she
could do
except to keep trying - without control of the gates she could
neither
communicate nor leave the space-time warp the Gates currently
occupied.*
Hah! So Eiko was not only being a bitch about Pluto trying to
regain
control, she was being a bitch AND locking Pluto out beyond
time
for
millinea, and complaining that Pluto wanted out?
Millennia? Where'd you get that? What's happened is this: You need a
key,
and the user privileges to get to or from the time gates - either
the minor
or major key. Pluto and Chibi-moon's user privileges have been
revoked,
pending a replacement for Pluto. Thus, Pluto is stuck until Ranma
can get
the minor and major key. I saw nothing regardin how long Pluto had
been
stuck, or perceived she was - only that she'd tried everything she
could
think of.
Um, it says straight out that she can't leave, since her access to the
Key is disabled. By millennea I meant 'forever', sorry if that wasn't
clear. From Pluto's perception, she has no way to escape. It's not
like she knows Ranma is coming to beat the crap out of her.
Good point, which does need to be addressed. Again, plenty of
ways
to deal
with it but having Pluto trapped at the Gate doesn't make sense
in
the context
of her losing her powers. And I agree that her assumption that
only
a member
of Serenity's court could be the guardian doesn't make a great
deal
of sense.
This was probably Serenity's idea - "Gee, here we have a bunch of
seriously
powerful artifacts, all in need of guardians. If I choose the
guardian's
from among my court, I'll have more or less personal control of the
artefacts. Heck, I'll take the most powerful one for myself."
Besides, who
says it wasn't Serenity, or one of her ancestors, who created the
gates and
decided the rules? What if Ranma is the only viable candidate
because he's
the only currently female member of Genma's line - which turns out
to have
been major nobility in the Silver Millennium?
Um, Eiko said she'd have looked on another planet if she hadn't found
Ranma. I don't think any of the other planets would have any SM
nobles. I mean, you can argue that, but....
As for Pluto's assumption, yes, she would WANT anybody with control
over the artifacts to be from the SM, but that doesn't mean she'd
think nobody else had the capability of using them.
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