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Phoney's Reviews -------------------------------------------------------------
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Quick Intro: After seeing all these review columns (and the feeback they get
like "keep your damn opinion to yourself!") I have decided to
start my OWN review column. Mail all flames and praise to my
address: we436@freenet.victoria.bc.ca
- Table of Contents -
1. The First Paragraph
2. Review: Hearts of Ice
3. Biters
4. Review: Those Tears Are Pearl
5. Too f'ing active
6. Review: Ranma no Hentai
7. "Wowee! Wait till they see my fifty-part fic!"
8. Review: Clothes Make the ... ?
9. Inetris
10. Sayonara
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The First Paragraph
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Yo. I've noticed this trend happening lately:
"It was a normal day. Nothing at all could go wrong. The sun was shining.
Soun Tendo looked up at a sunray bouncing on the wall and smiled. Then the
family altar fell down with a crash.
'Bad luck...is coming...' Soun moaned."
Now...let's see! How many times have I seen this kind of introduction? Hmm.
Fifty? Sixty? One hundred times? I'll just cover all those guesses with the
words "too many times." Really, people...you need to come up with a better
first paragraph for your fanfictions! Two of the fanfiction I'm reviewing
today stand out to me in that they are pretty good about this--Ranma no Hentai
and Those Tears Are Pearl. Ranma no Hentai, for instance, slams you right
into the action right from the start (a welcome change from other Kun-chan
fics ^^).
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Review: Hearts of Ice - by Kapster
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Rating: F'ing Awesome!
You've gotta read this one. Sure, it's really LONG with a large number of
chapters (which bugs me much). But it's very well written. The story is
addictive, for one thing. There are several unknowns--for instance, just
how old will Akane _be_ when and if she gets back to Earth?--that keep you
hungry for more. The characters are drawn in the usual cliched way: Nabiki
the trickster, Shampoo the idiot, Cologne the cunning and evil, Ukyo the
devoted despite the fact that she knows Ranma will never be hers. Then again,
I suppose this is good--it means they're in character, right? Ranma and Akane
are also in character--and done extremely well. Especially Akane. Her
feelings of betrayal at discovering Yuki-onna's schemes were well painted,
at least in my opinion. Oh, another cool part to look out for is when Yuki-
onna is trying to kill Ranma...
Another thing cool about this fic is that it's not drawn up solely to please
the reader. It's easy to make a big wad of melodrama and drop it on my face
in order to please me in case I'm looking for fanfiction dealing with the
delicate side of Ranma 1/2. Kapster seems to be writing this fic for herself
first and the rest of us second. This is good because it makes for _variety_
in a fanfiction's plot and in the character's behavior. Hmm...now that I
think of it, I remember her stating in an afterword at one point that during
one chapter, she had actually been jumping out of her chair, swinging her
fists around, and saying "Yeah Nabiki! Stick it to that old ghoul!" Ok,
you might label this as lunatic behavior, but it's better than "Hmm. Would
the people like this? Or should I change this to get better C&C? Hmmm..."
(And yes, I know for a fact that quite a few people think this way. At least,
out of those on IRC.)
If you're looking for in-your-face humor, you won't find much of it here.
What you will find is a fun, addictive, adventurous, and thoroughly enjoyable
fanfiction.
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Biters
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Don't you hate those punks who bite on your ideas, take your words, tryin'
to flip and bounce them? I've been seeing a lot of that recently, in more or
less blatant forms.
Now, I'm not talking about redoing an idea in your own style. For instance,
I'm not mad that despite the fact that I was the first person to post a fic
about Ranma wanting to become a girl, people are posting "conversion" fics
left and right. Take Leifker and Ichinohei's "Clothes Make The ...?" story.
That one rocks. (stay tuned for the review! ^_^)
I'm talking about people that rip off your shiznit. Take the revenge fics.
That may have been flattering to SKJAM!, but to me it was the worst case
scenario of mass biting I had ever seen. It turned into a major spam-fest!
Everyone and their dog just _had_ to have a revenge fic out. Geez. (and no,
_I_ didn't post a revenge fic. ^^)
Then there was that dude who plagiarized Palmer's "Winter" fic. The setting,
the conversation, the subject of the conversation, the time frame...hahaha!
It was funny when he denied ever having read Winter. Granted, if one person
could think of the idea independently, another person could also, right? But
what are the chances of that happening? But no matter, Palmer wrote him a
letter saying something like "We appreciate it more if you come up with your
own ideas instead of gracing us with your own interpretation of someone else's
work."
That boy replied with "OH OK SORRY THANKS"(.) <-- he didn't punctuate either
Palmer, I have to admire you. My reply would have been along the lines of
"You damn mother-f@cking piece of crap! Get the hell off our list if you
don't have your own sh@t!"
But it doesn't stop there. For every one of the "Old Guard" (as I call it,
it refers to everyone on the mailing list who was there back when I joined
nearly 2 years ago) there are five or six biters who steal their lines, their
quotes, their situations...the result? I feel an overwhelming urge to hit
my 'delete' key when I see a fic by someone whose name I haven't seen before
because I know it will be at least a partial copy of someone else's fic.
To paraphrase something WebDragon said: "I take the mistakes of others,
improve them, and then combine them to make the perfect fic."
I recognize that not every idea is going to be totally new and earth-shatter-
ing, but please try not to deliberately use other peoples' fics as the base
for yours.
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Review: Those Tears Are Pearl by Richard Lawson
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Rating: Neato
I admit, part of the reason I singled this one out when I was looking for fics
to read was the [lemon] tag. And those lemon scenes were done quite well.
The part with Ranma and Akane brought a tear to my eye--oh tragedy! oh un-
requited love! You oughta read this one. I've got one gripe...
The twisty, unrealistic, over-done melodrama that characterizes several of
Lawson's fics was here as well. Thy Inward Love was thick with it as well,
but it wasn't so over-done and so, well, unrealistic. (By the way, Thy In-
ward Love as well as Right Side of the Ledger are both rated "Badass" and
should be read by the whole civilized Ranma world.) When I say "unrealistic"
I mean the way that the characters just open up to each other so much and dis-
cuss their feelings so eloquently. Not to mention, it just bugs me when
someone consciously has an irrational feeling, they admit it, but they don't
try to nix it, instead saying "Maybe one day it will fade away." Geez...if
you _know_ that an idea is irrational, why don't you reject it? I mean, most
people only hold bad ideas inside because they think that they're good! I
know that that is easier said than done, but the way the characters _accept_
(mistakenly) that they can't do anything about these irrationalities really
sickens me.
Those Tears Are Pearl has a ten-page speech by Akane about her feelings.
Here she psychologically strips down and does a little sexy dance for her own
_rival_ for Ranma's feelings! I seriously doubt that Akane of all people
would do such a thing, and with so little ceremony. My only advice for
remedying this is the proverb, "Actions speak louder than words." In other
words, using scenes and reactions to events can convey equal amounts of
information in a much less...well, boring, way.
But don't get me wrong here. I don't hate this fic, I just don't like that
speech and I've elaborated far too much on why I don't like it. Makes my
review sound negative, doesn't it? I've rated this fanfiction "neato" because
it's a cool sequel to the first in the "Thy Outward Part"(?) series, it has
cool lemon scenes, and some of the melodrama is quite enjoyable! (Take the
beginning with Kentaro and Ranma.)
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Too f'ing active
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Hmph. Lately on the FFML I've been seeing these dudes sending out 10 messages
a day. Replying to every little thread you can see. Mostly newbies do this
kind of crap. Now..being active is nice and all, but it's not nice for this
list server and it's definitely not nice to myself. Why? I've gotta wade
through all this mail and your one-liner messages ain't helping at ALL! It's
like these people automatically change the to: line _back_ into fanfic@fan-
fic.com!
Then I look at the responses and they are things like:
"Send me this fic, please!"
Now WHY would you _consciously_ post this to the ML? After all, if you want
a copy, the whole damn list doesn't have to know, does it? Basically this
amounts to an invitation for 5 or so "me too" messages.
"I disagree"/"I agree" (and then a sentence or two justifying the opinion)
Um...justify for me exactly why you think people should care what you think?
Use discretion here! If a fic about rape is posted and a rape thread starts,
then by all means, drop in your two cents! But if there's some side-thread
about Ranma's hair, well, what the hell! Who cares? Don't post these to
the list. They add up...and fast.
I have one more beef here: you people who post fics and then 10 message con-
cerning their status or what's going to happen or why you haven't been getting
c&c...sigh.
There was some Andrew dude here...he caught my eye. No offense intended man,
you just happened to commit this "crime" when I was around. Anyways, he
posts some fic. And then I swear there must have been 10 or so tiny messages
posted immediately before and after it! Things like:
"I'm about to post in 30 minutes."
"I'm posting it now."
The Actual Post.
"Did you get it?"
"Do you want reposts?"
"Please C&C it please!"
"Did anyone read it?"
"I'm reposting it."
Repost.
"Do you like it?"
"Please request reposts at my address...privately, please, we don't want to
send too many messages to the ML."
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Review: Ranma no Hentai by Kunoichi
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Rating: Super Leet
"Super Leet" falls between "Badass" and "F'ing Awesome!"
This fic was a MASTERPIECE! Well, sorta. I detected a note of whimsicality
on Kun-chan's part throughout the whole thing. ^^ But check it out.
It features Ranma and Akane, both as guys! That's right! And they do it!
Ranma actually screws Akane through the ass! Is that novel or _what_?
Okay, let me admit something here. Kun-chan's fics have always had this sort
of political-correctness aura about them. They're so...well...they remind
me of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, or maybe of the Care Bears, in their mood and
tone. The Care Bears after they get drunk, that is. ^^ Anyways, this had
always kind of bugged me. I'm not saying that the Nubin no Ichi was terrible,
just that parts of it nagged me. HEY--I read the whole thing! So there.
Anyways, the way it started was cool--bam, right in the middle of the action.
Akane becomes a guy, and the expected excuse for not being able to find
the Spring of Drowned Girl is tossed at the reader, the Ranma cast then goes
back to Japan. Now at first Ranma and Akane are still doing everything their
normal way. You know, run of the mill stuff. At some point, Ranma gives
Akane a blow job. Yeah, you heard me right. Now this is cool. See, the same
way people love to read sex stories about virgin girls...that's how much I
enjoyed this section. After all, Akane is practically a virgin in this fic.
One of the events leading up to the blow job was Akane getting all hot, you
know, for _it_. She says, blushing and shaking (i think ^^) "Ranma, I'm...
hard." Now that hit me really hard (no pun intended). Akane is done _very_
well in this fic, even better than Ranma is in the earlier Nubin No Ichi fics.
All of that emotion and uncertainty is conveyed through her words and actions.
(And it didn't take 10 pages! ^_^) Perhaps I was hit so hard by it because I
felt the same thing that Akane was feeling.
...No, you pervert, not the "hard" part. I'm talking about the apprehension.
Having never read a "gay" fanfic, I was actually kind of _nervous_ about what
I would find (perhaps afraid of how I would react to it ^^). So I could
identify _very_ well with Akane's feelings at this point.
The rest of the fic was okay. Shampoo comes up with a plot and loses out big
as usual in FFML Fanfiction. Ranma boofs Akane and that's that. The final
sex scene didn't seem as descriptively written as in her other fics. She was
kinda weak on the euphemisms and dirty talk. It felt compressed as well...
as if she was trying to get through with it as soon as possible. Oh well.
Still, this fic got to me so well that I just had to let the world know how
cool it was. Of course, most of you on the FFML have read it already. I
hadn't, because I was practically barred from it due to mail server problems.
(Thanks to Misa-chan for DCCing it to me on IRC.)
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"Wowee! Wait till they see my fifty-part fic!"
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While I'm in Bitch Mode, let me talk about the latest trend on the ML. What's
up with these people waiting and posting large numbers of chapters all at
once? First of all, you people, the fics work better if you send a chapter
as you finish it. Why? It addicts me. Secondly, if you post a huge fic,
it actually scares me away. I don't want to read a _novel_ online.
Anyways, some dude posted a fic where he advertised that it had 27 parts or
something. Don't do that...it spoils the story because I know just how much
more angst to look for at any point.
Also..please don't post a story with 15 53k parts and then ask the next day
"Why doesn't anybody post c&c?" Geez...give us a chance already! :)
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Review: Clothes Make The ...? by Nightcrawler and Ichinohei
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Rating: F'ing Awesome!
Maybe I just like this fic because I attempted something like it early last
year. Ranma attempts to become a girl and Kasumi helps him with his quest.
Time's growing short here, so I'm gonna summarize. The descriptions of
Ranma-chan in her lingerie are heavenly. Ranma's feelings are well described.
So are his motivations. They're irrational motivations, but Ranma makes no
pretense of understanding them. For instance, when Kasumi asks him whether
he enjoyed wearing women's clothing, he said "Yes! I love it! I felt so
beautiful and wonderful and sexy and--" That's so _cool_. One thing I like
about this over Thy Outward.. is that Ranma's motivation comes from within,
meaning it's wilder and cooler and more of a turn-on too. ^^ Originality
comes _thick_ with this fic. You've gotta read it.
I can't _wait_ to see what happens. ^_^
(one note: the latest ver of part 3 wasn't too good, imho. they need to
include some more dressing scenes or something. oh, and it's also kind
of a "dead" chapter, if you know what i mean...nothing really _happens_
in it. on that note, part 2 was excellent. Akane and Ukyo's reactions
were well painted--i could almost _feel_ what Ukyo was feeling.)
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Tetrinet
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This is just a side note. Go to #tetrinet on effnet and ask for the URL to
the Tetrinet web page. kindbud.webzone.net is the main Tetrinet server.
Tetrinet is a kickass 6-player internet tetris program with a twist..you can
gain attack and defense blocks to fuxor your opponents' game boards and help
keep yours from getting too jammed up or too crazy! Check it out..it's really
fun!
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Sayonara
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Be on the lookout for my next review, which will include Webdragon's Nullifier
fic. Comments? Questions? Flames? Mail them to me OR the Fanfic ML! If
you write privately to me and I think your words are cool enough I might take
the liberty of posting them to the mailing list anyways (unless you forbid me
to). Oh, and do me a favor, flamesters? Don't tell me I don't have the right
to post this to the mailing list. People post nasty insults, lemon fanfics,
and even their own review columns to this list. So...I think I'm entitled to
this little contribution.
'Til next time!
Signed, Phoney
(If you still don't get what "biters" are, let me give you another example.
If I signed this post with "In My Opinion," that would be biting off Tale-
swapper.)
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we436@freenet.victoria.bc.ca