----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Shurtleff" <gaijin@sfcmd.com>
To: "Fan Fiction ML" <ffml@anifics.com>
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 12:33 AM
Subject: [FFML] [Fanfic][Ranma/SM] Relatively Absent: Chapter 5 (part
1 of 2)

This is a response to both parts, not just the first.  Comments are
primarily
content-oriented instead of being aimed at punctuation and such,
though
there is a bit of that.

Anyway, let's see what problems I find as I run through this:

*She also found an exceeding handsome maroon frog- front blouse and
slacks combination with a dark green dragon meticulously embroidered
across the back.*

exceeding->exceedingly.

*"Ooooooh." "Whoa!" "Not even Haru-chan's *that* flexible." "Am too!"
"No you're not, sis. Besides, not even you can jump that ... oh wow."
"You think Midori's noticed she still isn't wearing a bra?" "Oneechan?
... ... Oneechan? ... ... ONEECHAN!?!" "Huh ... Wha?" "You really
shouldn't drool like that, Oneechan. Someone just might get the wrong
impression." "I *don't* drool, sis." "Yup, she noticed." "I noticed
what?" "Oh, there you are."*

This is a great example of how NOT to write. Dialogue should be
informative of the characters speaking and of the world around them.
Here it's not even clear who is talking. this nonsense adds nothing to
the story at all. All it does is glorify Ranma, which we already get
enough of, thank you.

An a closely related note: who the hell are these girls? We're given
names, but they're just faceless and annoying ANCs. "I know, let's
make
up a bunch of new characters to alternately feel sorry for Ranma and
hate for everybody else! What a cool idea!" The Ranma manga doesn't do
shit for character depth or plot or anything related to thought at
all,
really, but every character, especially the characters that are around
for more than a single story, is firmly established. Yet this story,
which is supposed to be drama in some twisted and ineffectual fashion,
doesn't even have that. All we get is a horde of idiots prancing
around
and parotting the author's opinions without even getting a bare
lipservice of individual personalities. Not cool.

*A quick search located a nice neutral grey and more importantly
*plain*
sports bra. She was just going to have to get used to them; she was
getting tired of the way her breasts always ached after a vigorous
workout like the one she'd gone through this morning, and she
currently
didn't have the ability to splash this body away.*

Cliche, cliche, cliche. I don't know what I'd do if this wasn't
reinforced every five stories I read. Okay, I'll grant that wearing
clothes can be important sometimes, but since this doesn't contribute
anything to the plot or characterization it should be cut. It's just
useless filler nonsense.

*She was just about to put the maroon slacks back on when the full
realization of what she had just done hit her squarely between the
eyes.*

What? Did she fart? Dear heavens. I wondered if I was missing
something
here, so I paged down. then I paged down again, and again and again
and
again until I was over halfway through the chapter. Apparently Ranma
has
a nervous breakdown over putting on a pair of panties. Where the hell
does this come from? The only time Ranma shows any reluctance to wear
women's clothing (Simply for the idea, rather than the danger in being
returned to the male form while dressed inappropriately) is in the
beginning of the manga when he's forced to wear Akane's clothes. there
have been a number of times since then when Ranma wore female clothing
and it was never given any attention. This is clearly a problem of
chronological placement. This story should be set in volume 01!

*Eiko was starting to become ... concerned. Its new Guardian had
proved
to be a veritable treasure-trove of emotional energy - an input Eiko
had
been sorely lacking for a very long time - but those self-same
emotions
were rapidly spiraling out of Ranma's control. The youngster had been
subjected to far too many physical and emotional traumas over the last
week, and without the psychic stability provided by the full Guardian
linkage there was little Eiko could actually do to alleviate the
situation. And the upcoming bonding would put an even greater strain
on
Ranma's currently fragile psyche.*

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?

*Its former Guardian Sailor Pluto was stubbornly refusing to abandon
her
futile attempts at regaining control, and Eiko knew that very
stubbornness would force her to vigorously oppose Ranma's claim.*

Um. Run this by me again--Pluto's powers BROKE and she's supposed to
just say "Oh. well, gee, I always wanted to become a tea master! what
a
perfect opportunity!" maybe I'm missing something, but so far the
story
reads as Pluto not having a damn clue about what's going on. Yet the
author portrays this as though Pluto is some foolish villain who will
shortly be shown the error of her ways. Come on. Pluto is being
painted
as an idiot when she's not given any of the facts. That just ain't
fair,
and all it does is make Eiko look like a hateful bitch.

*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.

[scene of Ranma crying follows.]

Who the fuck is this person, anyway?

*And there was certainly *nothing* subtle about Ranma's body
language.*

I'm reading this as Ranma putting her panties on backwards, or
something. Maybe she put on a pair with a sextoy attached and it's
vibrating the hell out of her composure. It's hard to tell. There's so
many ways to interpret this.

[scene with lots of ANCs with unestablished characters talking to each
other.]

Uhh... okay. I got shit out of that.

*"You have quite a bit of 'other' family, Ranma-kun," Aiko smiled.*

She didn't SMILE the words, she SAID them. The only way she could say
that by smiling is if she'd etched words into her teeth with a chisel.

[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.

*Nodoka sat down and began a set of cool-down stretches. It had been
well over a decade since she had trained seriously and her entire body
burned and shrieked in protest, but the muscles, the muscles they
never
forgot.*

I dunno, judging from the way she fumbles around with her sword in the
manga, I find this hard to believe. Plus, if you look very closely at
the manga, you'll see that she has no sword-handling callouses on her
hands. Maybe you scribbled them in on your copy, but I don't see them
on
mine.

*--- 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.

*"Were you able to find anything, Ami-chan?"*

Okay. Ami is either IN THE ROOM or somebody is talking to her OVER THE
PHONE or on a SENSHI COMMUNICATOR. Maybe MIZUHO is flying around mars
and BEAMING THOUGHTS INTO AMI'S HEAD. There are so many possibilities!

*Makoto tried a time proven tactic: she held out her bento.
"Usagi-chan,
do you want some shrimp tempura? I cooked way too much last night."*

Okay. From this i can kind of guess that they are at school. No idea
WHERE in the school, but at school somewhere. Of course, they could be
somewhere else. It's hard to tell from just a bento. Still no idea on
who all is present, though.

[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?

[scene where Nodoka closes the family registry and seals it. Tradition
is spouted as being upheld.]

...What? Why the hell is this traditional? Women are clan heads, or
something? Where the hell does Nodoka get off on spouting all this
tradition crap, anyway? I dunno what kinda tradition it is for the
women
to be in charge in Japan, or what kinda tradition has women as suupa-
duupa sword masters.

*Kasumi had gotten several calls from the school counselor inquiring
about Ranma-kun's prolonged absence, and the subject of Akane's grades
had naturally followed suit.

Akane was in definite danger of being held back, and that was
something
the elder Tendo could simply not allow.*

After all the japanese crap that's been included in this story, I was
quite surprised to read this. It felt wrong, so I did a bit of
research.
Here is what I found, with regards to Akane's being held back:

Retention (genkyutomeoki) is rarely practiced in Japanese schools,
particularly during the compulsory years, or even during senior high
school. In fact, one senior high school teacher could not recall a
time
in his entire teaching career when a student was retained. Other
senior
high school teachers reported "one case every 4 or 5 years."

Instead of retaining students, Japanese teachers are encouraged by
administrators to provide extra instruction in basic skills (fushinsya
shido) to students having trouble meeting minimum school standards.
This
may involve the teachers spending time with students outside of class
or
providing remedial homework assignments during the summer or winter
vacations. In spite of these efforts, some students still perform
poorly
on examinations. In these cases, Japanese teachers reported practicing
what they call "letting the student put on a pair of geta (Japanese
elevated wooden clogs)". This expression refers to giving students
extra
points for good effort.

This information (and other) can be found at
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/JapanCaseStudy/index.html

[scene of Chibiusa whining about the unfairness of it all.]

Why doesn't she just go hump Mamoru's leg, or something? This is
annoying.

[scene of Ranma reflecting over how nice it felt to be masturbated by
Tofu.]

Oh, god, please stop pounding me with these cliches. Is there a reason
for this crap? Unless gender conflict is a large aspect of the story,
this is unneeded and annoying. If it IS a large aspect of the story,
it's not being given enough attention and it's only being given
attention in the obvious ways that have been addressed a million times
already. Regardless of the gender issue, the sexual nerves being
damaged
angle has also been done a thousand times. It's stupid to even bother
and it doesn't add anything at all. "Gee, lets make Ranma a sexual
idiot! what a great idea!" ...

[scene of author interjection in the form of Ranma laughing at
Chibiusa.]

My, how creative. You know, E'd never seen anybody make fun of
Chibiusa
before. How refreshing, in a stagnant kind of way. And on that note,
who
the hell is Midori? It's hard to keep all these personality-less ANCs
straight for more than one sentence at a time. They just bleed
together
like my eyes upon seeing a nude beach during a retirees convention.

[scene of Eiko talking down to Ranma.]

Ranma: a tree? what's a tree?
Eiko: a big brown thing with green stuff on it.

Gotta love that! Sorry, but something that never, EVER works
dramatically is to have a character explaining things that are obvious
to the reader to another character. All you're doing is saying "this
character is stupid," because the reader sure as hell already knows
what
was just 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!

Now, the problem here is that this has been done a MILLION BAJILION
PERTRILLION THOUSAND HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO TIMES! All the story is
doing
is repeating an idiotic cliche with absolutely no foundation--there
isn't even real characterization to support this nonsense! It's just
"well, I read Pluto is a bitch and she's just trying to make things
happy for the senshi, so that must be true! Who gives a shit about
rational thought! For authors and readers, it's out of style! Lets use
pogo sticks to make decisions, instead! Let's see... if I can bounce
one
time on my pogo stick, Pluto is an evil/stupid bitch!" *Bounces, falls
over* "LET IT BE SO!"

*{{It was not on a whim that I chose you for my Guardian, Ranma. If I
hadn't been able to contact you before you had perished in your battle
against the dragon child, I would have been forced to seek my Guardian
elsewhere. 'Elsewhere' in this case being defined as another inhabited
planet, since no one else on your world met all of the proper
qualifications for Guardianship.}}

Eiko felt the incredulity in its chosen companion. A little morale
building at the moment would be of significant benefit.*

Yeah. Eiko lost me on that one, too. Man, Eiko's programmer was
seriously nuts. Either that or clumsy enough to drop a few gummi bears
onto Eiko's circuits, which then melted and hardened into a
maliciously
spastic Guu. "I know! Instead of coming up with a believable original
character or trying to pick somebody more suitable from a different
series, let's have Ranma be the good guy! Who cares if he doesn't fit
AT
ALL, he's popular in fanfics and that means people will LIKE ME!"

*And the more accurate the routine preset, the less time the
imprinting
would take. This could become important if Sailor Pluto was able to
actively oppose the imprint while it was engaged.

Eiko would *not* allow that to occur.*

You know, the more of this crap I read, the more convinced I am that
Eiko is the bad guy and Ranma the stupid dupe in assisting Eiko's
plans
for world domination. But hey, maybe that's just my imagination.

[useless, crappy scene talking of travel throughout Tokyo.]

...Why the hell did was this added? Flaunting knowledge of Japan is
just
annoying and doesn't do anything for the fic. It's like if I wrote a
fic
documenting my taking a shit, then getting up and giving the shit a
close visual inspection, smell test, a taste test, and a hump test. Do
you want to read that crap?

[retarded refences to Kasumi being groped in a train.]

Kasumi glorifying...how retarded...and who the hell cares? Get to the
story! The story!!!! So far this chapter is running at about 1 part
content for 8 parts crappy filler--and the content ain't that great,
either.

*"Obasan ..." Tsuya whined.*

"Grandma" is spelled wrong here. It is a lot, actually. So is
"sister,"
for some odd reason. RULE OF THUMB: if you can say it in English, SAY
IT
IN ENGLISH! Mixing the two languages is like saying "Hi!" to somebody
and shaking their hand, then moving around and ducking to sniff at
their
ass. Mixing modes of communication is bad and stupid.

[much ANC nonsense.]

Bleh. Who the hell are these people? I should be able to FEEL the
differences between the characters. Having to memorize who they are
and
how they're related is a complete waste of my time.

*"I don't like this - I'm startin' t' feel like Ryouga." she
grumbled.*

Comma, not period.

*She squared her shoulders and fought to locate her center. It was
time.
Duty, and a mother's vengeance, would be met this day.*

Well, that's good. Too bad the Ranma series has no real established
concept of honor or duty. If not for those and a complete change in
Nodoka's character (Maybe this is a different Nodoka? One from a
different series?), it might be possible to pull this off in a
dramatic
fashion. Instead, it's simply hilarious, in a Dumb & Dumberererer kind
of way.

*"Count off! Set one check," Midori said.
"Set two check," Kioko replied.
"Set three check," Tsuya added.
"Set four check," Harukichi finished. "Oneechen, put the boom mike
*here* and say set five check."*

There's the retarded militiristic nonsense that every halfwit in the
universe feels compelled to use when writing about walkie-talkies.
Fabulous! Absolutely fabulous! And no, it doesn't stop here! We get
PAGES of this crap!

*Her own fate was given, but the others ... THEY were completely
without
honor. THEY would not atone to his soul. THEY ... ... would be
punished.
It was time.*

Wow, this is really off in left field. I'm continually amazed at how
people can use one set of standards for their favored characters and a
COMPLETELY different set for the unfavored. The manga does quite a
good
job of establishing that the characters are all relatively equal as
far
as flaws go. But no, let's ignore that! For we have Genma, the
HORRIBLE
PANDA! Let us rejoice! Let us eat panda steaks because it's cliche!
Let
us bay at the moon with the blood of his dishonorable carcass dripping
from our savage jaws! For we are on a MISSION FROM GOD!

*Genma jumped to his feet faster than his bulk would belie.*

Wow, if I didn't already know it before, the fat Genma cliche just
jumped into my face and started screaming at me with a bullhorn. Yeah,
this is cliche, all right. Have you even read the manga? That arc
where
Ranma was supposed to peep on Akane, and got his father instead? Genma
is shown quite clearly to be in pretty damn good physical shape. In no
way could he be described as bulky. You know, despite all the whining
about how badly Ranma has been treated, Genma is the one I really feel
sorry for in this fic. Oh well. Par for the course, so far.

*"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.

*The kendoka collapsed to her knees and screamed to the heavens.
"THE CLAN IS DEAD!"*

I do find it interesting the way Nodoka is referred to as 'kendoka'
repeatedly here, as though a 'kendoka' would find it honorable to go
around killing people. Oh well. Guess I just don't know Japanese well
enough. I just hope that everybody else picks up on it!

[insert more bullshit pseudo-military walkie-talkie nonsense.]

Gotta love those big Salmart plastic walkie-talkie value packs. $9.99
for a dozen!

*"Oh Daddy, *really*," Nabiki admonished.*

Comma before 'daddy'.

*Happosai sighed, feeling all of his years pressing down upon him. He
would just have to talk to his daughter again.*

This feels familiar for some reason...

*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? Sahaha. Root for the
good guys! Eiko rules!

*Her outfit, however, was an indecent parody of a school fuku and
Ranma
had to suppress a sudden fit of giggles at the sight it presented.*

AUTHOR INTERJECTIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

[crappy fight scene, punctuated with the standard, completely cliche,
idiotic 'good guys get caught up fighting among themselves while bad
guys sit on the side and fume about being ignored' nonsense.]

*"Only I can guard the Gates of Time," Pluto said, eye hardening.
"Only
I."*

Well, this sure as hell doesn't make sense. If only Pluto can guard
the
Gates, then how were they guarded before she came along? I'd say this
is
plot-induced-stupidity, but it's more author-induced-stupidity if you
ask me.

*She was fighting to retain consciousness before she had time to react
and barely had strength left to wave the staff behind her with one
hand.
She fell to her knees when the blows stopped as suddenly as they had
started.

Ranma landed with a thud about twelve feet away from Sailor Pluto.
That
pathetically weak back sweep had proved to be anything but - it had
brushed her forearm block aside as if it hadn't existed and plowed
into
her side with a blow worthy of Ryouga.*

Gee, I feel like I've seen this before. What was that obscure fic
called? Destiny's Child? Yeah, that's it! Goddamn ripoff...

[Pluto's world comes to a crashing halt.]

You know, I kinda feel sorry for her, too. Damn Ranma-named-person.
What
a jerk.

*"YES!" Usagi jumped to her feet and started bouncing up and down.
"Mama's lemon pie! It's the best lemon pie in the entire world!"
{{Moon
Crisis Make Up.}} "Lemon pie! Lemon ... WHAAAAAAAA ..."*

Okay. this was the only good scene in the entire chapter.
Congratulations. It's too bad about the all that other stuff, but
better
luck next time!

[bunch of nonsense about protocols and options.]

This was lame. Oh well.

That's the end of chapter five! I just can't wait to read more!


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