[FFML] [Ranma/Various] Avenging Act IV Chapter 5

[Gary Kleppe]

Because the best way to deal with someone who's being annoying, but 
either won't or can't stop, is to *ignore him and concentrate on 
something else,* we present this commentary, only about a couple of 
weeks after the fact.

I've not read the other comments. Any similarity to what others have 
said is an indication that great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ.


On 06/20/2014 01:13 AM, dbsommer wrote:

> Bucky regarded the terrain, as her father had taught her to always do in
 > superhero training. Terrain was useful in determining what sort of 
bad guy
 > one dealt with.


Suggest: what sort of bad guys one dealt with
(You refer to them as "them" throughout the next sentence, which 
requires more than one. If you keep "guy" singular then each "they" in 
the next sentence must be changed to "he".)

Also, if this is Ranma's own internal point of view, shouldn't he call 
himself by his real name?


> For instance, if they had a secret underground base named
> Bitterfrost in the middle of Siberia, they probably didn't use heat based
 > attacks.
>
>
>
> In this case the terrain was pure swamp. It was fairly standard for a swamp.
 > Damp, smelly, and filled with every mosquito in the world. Apparently
 > imbibing Super Soldier Serum did not preclude one from being eaten 
alive by
 > a horde of insects. At least there weren't any mossy swamp monsters,
 > apparently a commonality in many of them. They tended to be gooey, burned
 > you if you were afraid of them, and hung out with talking ducks. At least
 > that was what his father claimed to have heard.


You've switched gender pronouns even though Ranma hasn't switched 
genders. Try to maintain a consistent scheme, either based on his 
current physical gender, or the gender by which he's identified by the 
current point-of-view character. You can probably see from my choices in 
this paragraph what my preference is, but either way works.


> Then again, his father was a moron.


GENMA: That's exactly what the talking duck said.

MOUSSE: Waaaaaaugh!


> For all that was awful, it was yet normal for a swamp. The only strange
 > thing was the mansion a few hundred feet away. It was in the style of an
 > American plantation house from the 1800's, and so run down it might have
 > been built then and not been touched since. A few lights could be seen
 > through shutter covered windows, indicating some sort of occupation. What
 > someone was thinking in constructing such a thing in a Japanese swamp was
 > anybody's guess.


MICHAEL PALIN: People said it was daft to build a castle in the swamp, 
but I built it all the same, just to show 'em!


> Bucky looked over her teammates that had come along on this mission:
 > Daredevil, The Hulk, Giant Man, and Hawkeye. Bucky had actually been the
 > late arrival, having been picked up on the way in the quinjet. Despite
 > being filled in on the mission during the flight, she had the urge to 
have
 > her teammates repeat it, just to make certain they hadn't left out any


Suggest: urge to have her teammates repeat the plan
(or some such; not clear as written exactly what "it" refers to)


 > relevant facts. Like when they fought Mercurio, The 4-D Man, who could
 > shoot both fire AND ice, and not just fire like Hawkeye had mentioned.
 > Bucky had discovered the ice part when he had frozen her shield in midair
 > then fried her now unprotected posterior with the fire that had been
 > mentioned. And Thor had the audacity to say Bucky intentionally had the
 > bottom burned out of her outfit so she could moon the everyone and have


take out "the"


 > some cute guy rub aloe on her backside!
>
>
>
> Putting angry thoughts aside, Bucky said. "So let me get this straight. The local authorities called us in because a bunch of bodies have been disappearing from the local graveyards, and they want us to investigate because the police chief is certain a super villain is involved."
>
>
>
> "That's the size of it," Giant Man said.


RANMA: And the purpose of this bit is exposition through dialog?

TOFU: That's correct.


> "And Thor didn't want to come along because she was convinced that the only reason someone would dig up a bunch of corpses was so for...?"


Probably should take out "so"


> Everyone tensed up as the Hulk did as he was asked. To everyone's
 > surprise the interior of the room had been renovated to look like a
> dance club. There was even a black DJ wearing a blue cowl and cape
 > that looked similar to that of a chicken, complete with yellow


POLICE COMMISSIONER: I don't know who he is, but I do know this...

(Hey, if the story can use obscure in-joke references, so can the comments.)


 > gloves with talons on the backs of the hands. He was in a DJ booth,
 > mixing a dubstep beat in loud tones that caused everyone's bones to
 > vibrate.


RANMA: Dubstep?

UKYO: Yeah. Notice how his lip movements don't quite match the words 
he's saying?

(The reader pauses to check DuckDuckGo to find out what a dubstep 
actually is.)


> The room was also filled with scantily clad dancers, many of them with too much jewelry.
>
>
>
> They were also all in various states of decomposition.
>
>
>
> "Yes! I called zombies!" Hawkeye declared.
>
>
>
> "Okay, but... dancing zombies?" Bucky noted. The dancers still hadn't reacted to their presence.


ZOMBIE 1: I love going to these clubs just to meet babes. That hot 
little number over there has her eye on me.

ZOMBIE 2: Oh, sorry. It just fell out. I'll put it back in.

ZOMBIE 3: But does the music need to be so LOUD?! It's practically 
enough to wake the d-- oh wait, I guess that's the point.


> Giant Man said, "Well, I still think this is some criminal enterprise and that guy is wearing some sort of witch doctor outfit, so I'm not entirely wrong either.
>
>
>
> "And Hulk thinks bad noise is made by robots."


I assume the second line is Hulk's, so Tofu's should end with a quote mark.


> "No! Of course not. How would that get me a club?"
>
>
>
> "Oh," Bucky deflated a little. Most villains minds operated like that.


villains' minds


> "And we're 1 for 2." Bucky rolled her eyes. "You know, I have a bad feeling I


Suggest: we're one for two."
(words scan better than numerals)


> "Yeah, saw that one coming." Bucky turned to Daredevil. "This guy one of your villains?"
>
>
> "Never saw him before tonight," Daredevil said in admission to his


But think about it: That'd be true even if it *is* one of his villains. 
Not sure if it was intentional but that's a nice double meaning line.


> The Hulk suddenly tensed up and got a distant look in his eye. "Hulk
 > knows that name. Hulk remembers when he was smaller, Hulk liked that
 > video game. Hulk was excited about movie coming out. Movie had Jurgen
 > Prochnow, who was great actor, so Hulk thought movie would be good.
 > Hulk waited 12 hours in line for advance screening he was so excited."


Suggest: twelve hours

RANMA: You had to be there twelve hours in advance to be first in line?

HULK: No. Hulk have to start twelve hours in advance to find theater by 
showtime. Hulk have very bad sense of direction.


> The Hulk's veins started throbbing as he shouted, "Only movie was bad!
 > Very, very bad! Bad plot! Bad dialogue! Bad acting! Except Prochnow!
 > Hulk remember good guy say to bad guy, 'You created all this to become
 > immortal. Why?' and bad guy say, "So I can live forever,'! Hulk can
 > write better than that and HULK CAN'T WRITE!"


HULK: And Hulk also write lots better than... than guy we decided we not 
talk about.


> yes, it's silly, but I need to get back into the swing of things. And I think I owed it to an obscure character like Mercurio to get his name dropped. ^_^
>
>
>
> And yes, House of the Dead is that bad, and that really was a line of dialogue in it.


As I'm sure you know, the problem with in-joke comedy is that those of 
us who aren't in won't really get the jokes. If you want to spend more 
time on this (which you understandably might not) then I'd look for ways 
to inject more humor that aren't dependent on the reader being familiar 
with what you're referencing. The idea of a zombie dance club ought to 
lead to lots of good logical absurdities that you should be able to mine 
for comedy. Also, where some of the team misunderstand the purpose of 
the club, consider letting them not just talk about it but actually act 
on their misunderstandings, and let them persist as the story proceeds; 
it can be quite funny to see characters try to reconcile what they see 
to their preconceptions while the reader knows better.

Anyway, good luck with the next installment of this or whatever you end 
up working on next.