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The Ranma 1/2 Fanfic Hating topic; For your daily dose of haterade
Topic Started: Sep 14 2011, 03:52 AM (1,216 Views)
Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
So this is a topic for me to rant and rave about shit that annoys me in a fanfic I've read/am reading.

Up first is "Switching Heirs" by Dreiser, a fanfic where Ukyo goes on the training journey instead of Ranma. Dreiser herself isn't a bad author, in so much she barely qualifies at all. Most everything about this story is so pallid and limp that it borders on copy pasta. Now, you have to understand this was written back in the mid-90s, back in those dark ages of dial-up, when a gig was considered huge, when Netscape was still a browser option. Back before Youtube or prevalent DSL and Cable internets, alongside the might of Broadband and Wireless. Back when Clippy was still in service for fuck's sake! Back before widescale scanlations and internet fansubban. Back when you had to buy VHS tapes (!) for your animu, and buy them from a store! So you can imagine what happens when a small den of smelly proles gets together and basically begins forming all they know of the series from other fanfiction.

The Ranma Fanfic Mailing List, giving us such luminaries as Gregg (the extra g for that gangsta appeal) Sharp aka Metroanime (creator of the Bet, an excuse for spawing billions of shitty AUs) and a quaint little mormon by the nifty name of Jared Ornstead. You might know him better as SKYSABER, lord of the terrible shitfics. Or by his other alias Perfect Lionheart. Now, the problem here is that the mailing list was populated by diehard Akane fans (in the early days of the interbutts, people were still crazy and millitant) and the people who liked to over think shit and hate on Akane to rebel (since it was easy) against the status quo. They may or may not have made up a fake fanfic group called the Knights of the True Fiancee (yeah, people actually argued that Akane was illegitimate or something) who were "e-terrorists" who would bombard you with nasty e-mails encoded with viruses and do their best to get your shit taken down. I chalk this up to actually being an urban legend used to sway n00bs to their side. Anyways, it was in this den our featured author interacted with the "big names" of Ranma fanfiction and came up with her story. Now, authors helping each other is nothing bad but when you start the very first chapter with: "This was inspired by the works of Rumiko Takahashi, Wade Tritschler, Jim Robert Bader, and others." You know things have gone wrong somewhere.

I know, you don't know who those other two guys are, and for good reason. Wade Tritschler was the brain behind the Altered Destinies series, essentially replacing Ranma with x character on the training trip. Bader, meanwhile, is mostly the genius behind a really really overwrought fic called "A Tale of Two Wallets". We'll get to him in a bit.

So, yeah, Switching Heirs... strap in, this is gonna get bumpy.
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AndrewJTalon
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The Kid
Shall I start praying for your departed soul now?
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Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
I've survived the initial readthrough, so now the only thing to worry about is when I really start picking it apart for stuff to rant about.
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Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
So basically how this works is that instead of ripping off MST, I'm just going to run through things about each chapter that pisses me off. This is my opinion and there's no need for a debate here. If you disagree, just don't post.

"Switching Heirs" chapter 1 (wherein, we find ourselves on the borders of hell):

1 (this will come and go depending on how mad I get). The stock retelling of the first chapter/episode of Ranma 1/2. It's cliche now, but I suppose it was still in the low hundreds back when this was first written. Still, considering the premise is Ukyo takes Ranma's place, a scene where this is mandated or made to happen would be nice. More of an irksome bother than actual anger inducing.

2. Genma being the bitch of whoever replaces Ranma. Seriously, in both Nabiki 1/2 (dear god why, and I say that as a massive Nabiki fan) and Kasumi 1/2 (because the thought isn't scary at all), Genma is basically the bottom bitch of the girl in charge. And it doesn't make any sense to me because even as much as Genma and Ranma argued, Genma won more often than not, up until there was an entire arc centering around Ranma finally surpassing his dad in full. (Which, incidentally, is fucking hilarious, showcasing how Genma has a move thought up for damn near everything, up to and including a specific manner of surrendering). But he's already cowed into submission and we don't even get a tiny bit of why.

3. The author basically tries to keep who it is a secret until they get to the dojo. It isn't bad, but trying to hold back for a miniscule payoff (and this is without making you think it's Ranma uncursed or hinting at who else it might be mind you). It's basically, "Genma and Mysterious Person X walk to the dojo. Only this time, Genma doesn't want to go to the dojo and X does." It's basically lifting most everything from canon except X isn't Ranma.

4. Ukyo is Happosai's heir. What. No really. This is dropped on us during the traditional "Soun gets the postcard" scene... while having Nodoka there. o.O Yeah, it's the old, "raise Ranma and Akane together so they'll marry once they get old enough" thing, but as usual with these plots, it fails miserably... I should save that for it's own point. Anyways, this is bad because it's filled to the brim with expo speak, since the characters talking should already know this. The only thing missing is an "As you know..." just for full derp points. Nodoka doesn't remind Soun she already knows all of this, mainly because the author kind of forgot that logic hole there.

5. Akane and Ranma HATE each other. Yeah, I touched on this before, but what the fuck. Are you shitting me? Akane and Ranma have been raised alongside each other for the last decade. The tension in canon was Ranma, a complete fucking stranger, was coming into her life to take away her ability to choose her own path in life. Here, they know each other for ten years but still bicker as though they just met yesterday. Ranma also still has his canon skills, which makes no fucking sense, when you consider either Nodoka (all of my nope) or Soun (who might have trained him, but there's no way Ranma would be as good as canon without Genma) trained him in a stable environment. Not saying it isn't possible, but Ranma's unnatural growth in canon is almost entirely due to having to fight and claw for survival for 10 years. Here, he's been raised by his mom in a stable home without much of anything to push him in the art.

6. Ranma has the retarded "doesn't fight girls" attitude, again, despite the fact that his coward of a father didn't teach him. See, what I don't get about it is how it makes him look good in any stretch of the imagination. Because in reality, he's looking down on Akane and any other girl for something they have no control over. He's summarily dismissing them for having the audacity of being born a woman. It makes no sense, since he has to fight plenty of girls and there are plenty of dangerous women who can and will kick his ass if he refuses to fight them. And his MOM raised him with this attitude, though I wouldn't be surprised if he took one of her lectures the wrong way ("A man doesn't prove his manliness by beating up a woman." after a fight with Akane). So at least Akane has a legit reason to hate him.

7. Ranma instantly falling for Ukyo. I mean, it's pretty much as soon as Ukyo returns, he immediately falls head over heels for her for no real reason other than the author said so. He'd probably had known her for like a couple days to a week at most ten years ago. And the author portrays it as if he had been traveling with her the whole time... despite it being established that Ranma hadn't seen his dad since they took off.

8. Ranma's like the worst nice guy ever. I mean, he's a gigantic asshole throughout the story but we're supposed to believe he's some sort of virtuous motherfucker. Akane gets mad since he's good friends with Kuno and he's done nothing to stop the morning fights, he immediately tells he to basically fuck off, even though Akane being friends with Kodachi has nothing to do with anything. And we're shown that all Ranma does to try and get Kuno to stop is basically say, "Knock it off!" "....No." "Shit, I tried."

9. The constant eye color references. In the opening scene with Dudekyo (Male Ukyo, have to keep that 1/2 in there) and Genma, at least two or three references are made to Ukyo's eye color. By the end of the chapter, you'll hate Sandalwood, even if you really don't know what it is. It's so goddamn repetitive that it just comes off as if she wrote one whole scene, copy pasted it a hundred times and edited it into different character.

10. The artificial way everyone talks. By this, I mostly refer to the times exposition runs into the dialogue. Such as Soun's line to Nodoka, and I'll c/p it for you if you don't want to look: "Nodoka!" Soun turned to beam with happiness. "The
master's chosen heir, the daughter of our own dear departed friend Kuonji Akira, little Ukyo, has written me saying she is returning from her long training journey with Genma! Isn't it fantastic? Finally our school will be complete! And you will be able to live with Genma as man and wife!"

Hell, he doesn't even let her respond to his question. And another thing, "little Ukyo"? Nodoka just got done calling him "Soun-kun" (whut) and you've used Ojisama (mixed with pops, as if the author randomly forgets which language the characters are speaking) before, so why not "Ukyo-chan"? If you're going to use Wapanese, fucking USE IT CONSISTENTLY. Strangely though, the author actually gets the use of the word "kami" right (not as a replacement for God, but as a collectivism for a group of spirits or deities that watch over you)... but whiffs on Ojisama (Ukyo is supposed to have no respect for Genma and calls him "pops" to annoy him, using a highly respectful term for "Uncle/Old Man" just seems odd. Hell, Nodoka who everyone loves and adores for no reason gets a stiff "Obasan", which is a neutral term of respect for an older woman/aunt and can be used to tease a woman about her age). It's like this story can't decide if it wants to be bad or good.

11. The offhanded way it fills in plot details, and by that, I mean a character will tell you about another character's habits or characteristic. In relating the fanon cliche of Breadwinner Nabiki (absurd with Nodoka AND Soun, much less to anyone who has read Ranma 1/2. Again, Nabiki fanboy and even when it tries to make her out to be cool or awesome it manages to make me mad), Akane sounds less like someone speaking in defense of her big sister and more like a total stranger spreading gossip about someone else. It's almost as if the explanation was copied verbatim from some essay someone wrote and the author didn't bother to spice it up.

12. Mandarin as a catch all for Chinese. While yes, it is the standard dialect spoken, and all that, hardly all Chinese is Mandarin and this discounts the massive number of regional dialects spoken. In much the same way, despite being raised in Kyoto, Ukyo doesn't appear to have any of the dialect quirks associated with it. Which makes me think that the author didn't bother to research either country very well (and likely couldn't, as wiki wasn't around either). To be fair, nearly all (if not all) anime fics fail to take into regional dialects into account (many anime dubs are guilty of this too, as Kansai-ben become West Texas, Japan in America). This is, of course, because we are writing in English (likely American), and barring extreme dialects (like heavy Southern or Ebonics), it's mostly the same. But again, if you're wasting the time to e-peen (e-vagoo in this case? I don't know) by using Japanese, make sure you make the effort pay off in full.

13. No cure for Jusenkyo. Minor rage, but again, the anime likely said there was no cure, so this is only a minor annoyance again. Just pointing it out to keep my mind flowing right on this.


And that's all I can think of for chapter 1. Will edit in more if I remember it.
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Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
So, chapter 2 of Switching Heirs is basically a big ball of nothing, except to establish Kuno as the butt monkey and start the inevitable pairing of Ranma/Ukyo. She's been back all of a day and she's already head over heels for him and vice versa. Subtlety this is not.

We do get one minor bit where Ranma makes a really hamfisted attempt at tension between the two, but Ranma apologizes in like a couple paragraphs and basically brushes it all away. And it just doesn't make sense since he should have enough manners drilled into him by his mom to not make such a stupid statement in the first place. And Ukyo then wistfully waxes in her internal monologue how smart he is... HAH! And again, it's been at most a DAY since they met again. I know I have issues with scale and all, but fuck man. You can't keep a DAY straight?

We have more of the weird Robo-speak too. Ukyo says, "My birth father", even though she hasn't referred to anyone else as her adoptive or current father. It's a minor complaint but it's entirely wooden. Ranma also wangsts about his relationship with his dad, who got back YESTERDAY. Holy fuckballs kid, take a goddamn chill pill and wait a couple months before you bemoan that. Akane also robotically tries to cheer him up, but calling him Ojisama doesn't have the same omph of reemphasizing that Genma is Ranma's father. This is the one and only time we see Ranma have such a moment concerning him and his dad. It will never be brought up again nor do we see it ever resolved. What.

It's like this is actually written by the Fic-tron-9000, a sentient computer that writes idiotic stories to melt our brains to make the take over of robots easier in the year 3000. Everything is empty and even the moments that try to be genuine and heartwarming just come off as shallow. If seen damp spots with more depth to them than this shit.
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Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
I was gonna do this all, brick by stinking brick. Pieces by fail infested piece... but there's just nothing to riff on consistently that isn't a repeat of anything I've said before, so I'm just going to dump all of the rage I have at this thing and move on.

-Ryoga is now apparently childhood friends with Sakura from Street Fighter (and no joke about Ryoga being Dan's son? Sad.). Where to begin... First off, Sakura's name is given as Sakura Kurasawa... even though it's canonically been Sakura Kasugano. Sure, maybe it was change somewhere and maybe she couldn't research it but holy fuck. Not only is Sakura suddenly from Kyoto (so she can meet and fall into lesbians with Ukyo), but the author falls prey to Tokyo is just Tokyo. In reality,. Tokyo is 23 wards, of which Minato (where the Azubu-Juban district resides aka Sailor Moon) and Nerima (you know, where Ranma is set?) are amongst them. Even if we allow artistic license, we still have to smack her in the face for saying they were close to Nerima when they were standing by Tokyo Tower. Which is in Minato, due Southeast of Nerima for a number of miles. Hell, Sakura's Street Fighter Alpha 2 stage is in Setagaya, which is directly south of Nerima! And even if we say, "durr hurr, it's not Sakura", the author goes, "Oh uh, yeah it is her." later on PLUS she makes implicit reference to Sakura training with Ryu. Argh.

-She tries too hard to make a running gag out of Ryoga and Sakura being lost. But like most everything else, it comes out flat because a. it isn't actually funny the first time she uses it b. she doesn't try and make it funny by running the same exact format as before and c. she then runs it into the ground, an impressive feat considering the joke was akin to a legless horse with dysentery.

-Ryoga is both a crazed psychopath and the sweetest guy ever. At the same time. He doesn't have a problem with attacks that can harm bystanders and continues to use them even after getting Akane caught in the crossfire, who he is very unsubtly being shipped with. Did we really need Akane's hair being chopped off? Ryoga's a complete fucking stranger to her, him liking her short hair doesn't have nearly the same impact as it did in canon with Ranma! It's like she watched the series and took away every single wrong thing imaginable from it.

-Oh and Ukyo emos Ryoga out of his revenge. Ukyo is soooooo emotionally distraught by them being fucking morons and following her to China (of their own free will, OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL) where they of course get cursed. Keep this point in mind for later. And all she does is mope a bit and everyone just babbles at Ryoga and I can only imagine this idiocy only worked because he just wanted them to shut the fuck up.

-Let's move back a bit and talk about Dr. Tofu who is such a complete throwaway I believe he actually disappears after the whole Akane thing and is never mentioned again ever. And this is from someone who watched the anime, where he stayed around! My GOD. It's completely a waste of time to do all this shit with him early and just chuck him in the trash bin afterwards.

-Kuno, the pictures, and blah blah blah. It's basically just a near copy cat of the episode in question, except it's pictures of girl Ukyo (and a slightly funny moment of Loophole Abuse by Nabiki, and a nice "Shut up, Kirk" from her as well when Ranma gets all high and mighty) and all that jazz. Basically, several chapters could have been condensed into one without losing anything. BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING THERE.

-Shampoo, Shampoo, Shampoo. It is often the make or break point for a lot of fics and how they deal with her. Even if I leave all my personal gripes aside, I still would fail this fic hard because the whole arc with Shampoo is one great big mess of an idiot ball. At no point does Ukyo just explain the curse to Shampoo (who goes from wanting to kill Dudekyo to wanting to fuck him because she somehow forgets to just say, "Oh btw, I'm really a girl curse by Jusenkyo".) and get the bulk of the shit out of the way. Even if we grant she didn't want Shampoo trying to kill her, Shampoo was already out for her blood for running out on her. We have the stock memory erasure and yadda yadda... but since Ukyo/Ranma is twuuuuuu wuvvvvvv, he cures her memory loss with a kiss. How does that work? Fuck if I know. It's like is everything about this story terrible? My god.

-Sakura gets hit with the dip stick by two factors: 1. The unrealistic immediate empathy for Ranma without even being tempted to say fuck it and abscond with Ukyo back to Kyoto forever and ever, fuck your couch Ranma. That she'd come to that conclusion is admirable... but the fact she immediately jumps straight to it without ANY soul searching just seems fake. 2. She was smart enough to avoid the Amazons... but still went to Jusenkyo. And no, this isn't a one time thing that gets retcon'd later, SHE KEEPS SAYING IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Which serves to reinforce the idea that she is the world's smartest dumbass.

-Kodachi, Kodachi... she returns from her left side of the screen to do the whole Rhythmic Gymnastics thang. It's a pretty decent build-up to a fight worth seeing (Akane vs. Kodachi in a weird kind of Idol or Friendship decision thing, only it's about Kodachi choosing her rep or her friendship), but we don't get to see because the author has Kodachi fall into lesbians with Sakura and Ukyo gets so jelly that I want to break out some bread and peanut butter. There is also the morals dissonance contained within, that Akane is stupid and moronic for wanting to do right by her classmates who begged for her help after her bestest friend forever beat the dog shit out of them. Remember, the morally right path is the one where you turn your back on those in need. It veers further into what the fuckville when Ukyo chastises Ryoga for trying to encourage Akane to not give up. See, in canon, Ranma was being jelly like a doughnut so of course he'd give Ryoga shit for macking on his woman (who he claims to not want but that's logic in Takahashi world)... so why is Ukyo, saint of saints and the fucking rule 63 of Jesus saying it? Because encouraging someone to not give up is soooo morally reprehensible. How can Ryoga sleep at night with such a monstrous flaw as ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO NOT GIVE UP IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY. Fuck you Dreiser, seriously.

-Oh and btw, Ukyo suddenly stops being a roadblock for Sakura and Kodachi to start munching each other's rugs the moment after she wins. So we ditch the perfectly fine and potentially entertaining fight between Akane and Kodachi for this pile of shit which didn't need to happen!? Also, you can't portray Ranma as sensitive and caring when all he does is make insensitive jokes about people's hardships. Seriously, stop being a dick you assfaced fuck. You're not even an amusing dick.

-So, Shampoo mails her catself back to the dojo and no one says, "You know, maybe we should make sure the cat isn't Shampoo under a Jusenkyo curse." Considering there are FOUR PEOPLE WITH SUCH CURSES LIVING IN THE HOUSE, making sure she isn't sneaking in to murder you in your sleep might be a good idea.

-Ukyo has the Nekoken. Yeah. Even with the threat of Happosai coming down on him as the fist of a thousand angry gods if he fucks up training darling little Ukyo, he still goes along with it. Considering even Happosai is appalled by this (mostly because Ukyo is a girl but still...), it's a colossal fuck up here. Not to mention we get Dudekyo kissing Ranma, which causes two stereotypical homophobic reactions from Genma and Ryoga. Yeah, the author is a lesbian herself (if this is indeed her gender), so she feels the need to soapbox a bit here. I can see Genma (since he's a dick like that) but Ryoga is kinda unnecessary what with being childhood friends with Sakura, who is a massive dyke. Sigh.

-The Golden Pair. Just what. Not only does Mikado casually over power Akane, he even takes a full blown kick from her to his nuts and keeps on talking. Um... okay, I doubt Mikado is that badass for one, and for two, does the author really have no idea what kicking a dude in the balls does? It's not really for comedy's sake that a guy crumples to the floor in agony. And unless he's built up a tolerance to getting his bits smashed... Man, I don't even know anymore.

-Oh look, we have more "just give up guys" from our saintly duo. Since being engaged is supposed to have made Ranma more thoughtful, it really detracts from your point when he's tossing that out there casually as if it is the right thing to do. And no one calls him on it, so it just looks even worse.

-The fight was... well, to call it bad would be to pretend like it actually had merit to waste two or three chapters on it. But it didn't so I'll leave it at godawful and move on.

-Shampoo returns, shocking only the idiots in the story that "C-Chan" (no, really. Ranma names her C-Chan, I shit you not) is actually her under a Jusenkyo curse. Of course, there's a bit of bonding before Perfume (lol, all Amazons are named from hygiene products) shows up to ruin things. Of course, Ukyo talks shit while buck ass naked and no weapons against someone dual wielding battle axes. And then the author decides to explain why this is stupid since Ukyo has zero weapons to fight back with.

-Here's one of the really stupid things that happens: Nabiki (that Nabiki) defeats Perfume with a surprise attack. Nabiki fucking Tendo casually defeats an opponent who was giving Ukyo problems, Ukyo who's been training with Genma and has some additional training from Happosai. WHAT. THE. FUCK. We get one throwaway line earlier that Nabiki learned her mother's school of pressure points, but to basically defeat someone wielding axes and sawing through the place like a chainsaw lizard? I... I just don't believe it. I can believe fantastic shit. I can read everything written by the Sage of Toads and not genuflect like I did when I read this. I can write a story about Shinji Mofreakin' Ikari as a deadpan snarker and not feel bad. I am a raving Nabiki Tendo fanboy. I WRITE RANMA/NABIKI FANFICTION. I SHIP THEM AND I CAN'T EVEN FUCKING SWALLOW THIS. I'm like the epitome of absurd, and this just doesn't fucking FLY.

-Of course, due to lesbians being something of an author appeal, Perfume gives the kiss of Life (read: marriage) to Nabiki. Who so totally doesn't mind girls by the way, thought you might want to know that. Could have just shown it or something but nah, fuck that. Let's dump a vehicle for actually character development and depth for a throwaway line to establish that this does not disgust her in any way. Of course, being "trapped" in marriage totally pisses her off so she'll do anything to be rid of Perfume! This resolve last about a chapter and literally two conversations, the second of which Nabiki spills her guts about EVERYTHING because Perfume just asks so nicely. Must be nice, living in a world where there are no secrets. No one who hides their feelings and just GUSHES about them immediately.

-Oh and in all of this, Cologne attacks Nabiki, who manages to dodge enough to impress the Elder... somehow. Even though Cologne would have to be holding back so much that anything Nabiki could do would be all thanks to Cologne holding back. And even though Nabiki had just defeated Perfume not the day fuck before, Cologne reveals she has been observing them for the past few days... with no reason to pay attention to Nabiki because she had just fucking defeated Perfume yesterday! God, does cause and effect not exist?

-It gets better, as Cologne basically curbstomps Ranma and Ukyo. That's right, Nabiki stays more competitive against Cologne than Ranma and Ukyo. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

I'll stop for now, there's like one more little post I have to make to finish this.
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Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
We interrupt the previous tirade for this:

Ranma0 by Vic-Mongona-is-awesome reviews
The first Ranma and Tosh.0 crossover. It also has Nyan Cat! Enjoy!
Rated: K+ - English - Humor - Chapters: 1 - Words: 264 - Reviews: 2 - Published: 9-20-11 - Akane & Ranma - Complete

This is a thing. It exists. WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHY?
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NuitTombee
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Anonguy
Sep 23 2011, 06:09 AM
This is a thing. It exists. WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHY?
To troll people obviously Anon.
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NonsensicalNonsense
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If you manage to get through that, try the "Just Won't Die" series by Jeffrey "One Shot" Wong.

I think it's safe to say that he pretty much set the standard for Super!AnimeCharacter for everything he touched.
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Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
I try to forget he exists at times, specifically because he probably started the trend of ultra-powered sue replacement characters.
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Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
In the end, underneath my bluster and walls of text, the moratorium on Switching Heirs is simply one of empty calories and nonexistent promises. Unlike much of what I have raged at before and what I will rage at in the future, there is no sting of disappointment for what could have been or could be done.

This is an empty core of a premise, shot in the head before it could even see its way into the world. Its sins are that of its creator, but will suffer the stings because the author has long abandoned it to the wind. It is as much fanfiction is, fleeting, furtive glances at something wonderful and terrible at the same time. But in the end it could not cross the line into terribly awesome.

Personal enjoyment dulls the anger hate arouses, and as such, there is none to be found her. The exchanges are limp, the dialogue beyond pallid, and the changes to the characters are close to criminal. In the end, the story ends, not with a bang or even a whimper, but a dull thud as the loose foothold it had on the mountain gives way and it plummets into the pile where unfinished fanfics go to die, only to be dug up by assholes like me.

The curtain closes on this show, there is no Springtime for Hitler.
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Anonguy
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The evil that lurks in men's hearts
I'm in the mood to text wall, so let's talk about Jim Bader. If you know who he is, you're either in the camp that likes him, or in the camp that just sort of looks at him in frustrated annoyance at what he does. Since this IS the hate topic, you can guess where I stand on him. Anyways, what's important to note about Bader is that he had a penchant for sprawling "epics" that didn't have the good sense to die once he had pretty much gutted the original premise of the story for content and just kept going on forever despite the fact that the story should be over already. His one attempt at semi-intrigue died on the vine around chapter 12. Meanwhile, Nabiki 1/2 (yes, that's right, NABIKI TENDO AS THE MAIN CHARACTER) went on for 191 (!!!!) chapters. The very baffling existence of it leads me unable to even try to read it, so I'll talk about his other big work.

"A Tale of Two Wallets" is a canon re-imagining where Nabiki is thrust into the role of main fiancee. Even as a supporter of said ship, the way Jim does it half asses it and robs us of most dramatic worth or interest. Not only does she not completely drain him dry of both sperm and worth, she pretty much falls head over heels by chapter freaking six. If you follow the link, you will see that it stands at 129 CHAPTERS not including sidestories. Since the main thrust was "Ranma 1/2, but with Nabiki instead" was pretty much thrown out immediately for a weird opening where another Nabiki winds up warping reality or some shit and oh dear I've gone cross eyed. We also get the tried and true "RANMA IS TOO HONORABLE FOR THIS SINFUL EARTH" pathos that still won't fucking die. I'll give that he has some form of moral character, but Takahashi has not ONCE even hinted that honor is even a hang up anymore. if it ever was, and the fact that there's a cadre of violent psychopaths out after them is really the reason why we didn't get another wedding end from her.

Look, Shampoo is cute, but she's also violent with more than a few questionable character moments (mostly from the manga, but Jimbo is probably an anime continuity writer, which explains way too much). Even if Ranma were to feel sorry for her or her situation (it is his fault), that sympathy disappears after all the shit she's put him through, all of which are too numerous to count. It's kind of silly to worry about hurting her or shit if you're NOT going to fucking marry her you dingus. Since it seems she marries him or some terrible fate to be determined (curse locking seems to be a fanonical favorite), it's not rocket science. And for all you "but he didn't know the laws!" people, ignorance of the law is no excuse, though in a criminal case you might get a little lenience if you can sell it properly. Plus they were marching for a while with the guide who seems to know a lot of exposition the local lore, wouldn't you want to know if there's a potentially murderous tribe of people native to the area? All I'm saying is the poor Shampoo ship sailed years ago.

And Ukyo... what the fuck is it about Ukyo that makes people go fucking retarded when it comes to her? She comes for revenge and all, screaming bloody murder without even confirming he was guilty of what she wanted to kill him for. She's bipolar (I HATE YOU BUT NOW I LOVE YOU) at best or completely nuts at worst. She uses Ryoga for her own gains (even if he does deserve it to a degree), has no problems turning Ranma's pride against him for her own gain, violently attacks him when he saves her, slightly embarrasses her, and let's not forget: EXPLODING OKONOMIYAKI! What sane person, let alone your BESTEST FUCKING FRIEND IN THE GODDAMN UNIVERSE, does this? She's a terrible person! HOW ARE YOU NOT SEEING THIS?! Is it because of Akane? Which, I will admit, tempers everyone's perception of the other girls, myself included. But outside of domestic violence just means true love and is completely okay to laugh at (try reversing the roles and see how many laughs you get), what is it that Akane does that makes her less worthy than Ukyo? I suppose that whole "childhood friend" thing (except you know, Ranma thought she had a penis, he was stupid) is what we'll fall back on, but 9 times out of 10, the childhood friend will not win shit. Plus you know, he used to bully her for free food from her old man, such a warm and loving friendship. Okay, yeah, she wanted to marry him but she was six and stupid too, not to mention that it wasn't likely she really understood what marriage actually meant (you know, love and all that good sounding junk) and not the other side that sounded pretty good (Ranma doing whatever she said). And you know, I don't recall Akane knocking on Ukyo's door and throwing dynamite in her face. *shrug*. I don't see it.

I've gotten way off track, but the point is, from the beginning, we have a terrible set-up that plays with certain cards as being fact: Ranma is actually a nice guy (pfft, hahahahahaha), Akane is an uber violent bitch whose flagrant misandry is a cover for being closeted (it's crowded in there if you have tits in Jim's world), Shampoo and Ukyo are worthy of the reader's pity (debatable, but I doubt it), and the biggest honker of them all, Nabiki is secretly in love with Ranma but wouldn't dare to poach her sister's unwanted fiance who is making her miserable. I'm a hardline apologist for most of the things Nabiki does, but I seriously doubt that if Nabiki is carrying enough of a torch for a mild breakdown after a tweenage angst outbreak from Ranma, that she'd be so secretive as to not put the moves on him. Lord know Akane screams and cry about how much she hates him, gets upset if he breaths too hard and all that Akane bashing that is so original. *rolls eyes* Does being a Love Martyr sound like Nabiki to you? That she'd just give up on someone she might actually be attracted to (jokes Takahashi made aside, she doesn't strike me as genuinely asexual or anything)? Nah, she'd have gone for it if we're trying to make it slightly within reach of canon. Even if we're to assume for the sake of drama she'd held back, since the story will be shortly jumping off this path and on to another, why do we need this set-up? It's pointless, unnecessary and only furthers to illustrate the failings of the writer.

So, even though we've punched reality in the dick and rebooted everything, everyone still retains some form of their previous self. Akane still HATES Ranma (despite the fact she isn't his fiancee and it is in her best interest to make him feel welcome so he'll marry Nabiki and leave her alone), Ranma is still a nice guy (generic version, no quotes like Ryoga), and Nabiki seems to have kept her unexplained attraction to him. There's just a lot of filler for something that can just start out right away as "Ranma gets engaged to Nabiki instead" and it all gets lost in the shuffle of Bader's text diarrhea (cha cha cha).

Now this will sound hypocritical of me if you've read Reprint before, but Bader's obsession with lesbianism and/or "all women are bi" is kind of off-putting. It's kind of okay if we're keeping it inside its bubble like I do (just a thing to mention for gags and such), but to really waste time stating it instead of exploring it seems lazy. Porn is fine since you might get fappan out of it, but a semi-serious (and it takes it self so seriously) setting just ruins the effect. Sure, like I said, there's plenty of "lol, lesbians" in Reprint but a lot of that is for the sake of a gag and also because I don't want to make a big deal of it because it shouldn't be. But we're establishing character outside of the narrative frame here and treating it as okay to do so. What I'm getting at is that the only real difference between what I'm doing in Reprint and this comes down to execution and aim. In my case it's more for background filler than anything while it's everywhere in this story. By the fourth or fifth chapter we have Nabiki saying, "lol, I like girls too lewl" in such an offhanded manner that it seems that Bader doesn't seem to get that focus characters (otherwise known as main) get all of their character development shown (to a degree anyways), while blurbs are fine for background characters because the audience now has a trait to color any pending interaction. You see what I'm trying to say? No? That's okay, it is a very narrow line I walk.

I'd go into Bader's Akane but if I get rolling, I'll wake up in an alleyway covered in other people's blood and the taste of hoboflesh on my lips. My 20th birthday was a traumatic experience.

*cough*

Anyways, that's pretty much the quick-n-dirty version. Maybe if I lose my mind I'll chapter by chapter it later.
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