ECB v Uncreative Title Boy!

[Dracos]

A fine afternoon this is, my Simon and Garfunkel is playing beautifully in the background.   Time for the Evil Commentary Bureau fic of the afternoon.   Submitted early this morning it's hot off the presses, a new fic up at Tannim's.

For fair reading this fic may be found at:
http://tannim.anifics.com/Ranma_Evolution/ranmaevolution00.txt

As always this criticism will be stored for posterity at the Evil Commentary Bureau Wesite:
http://dracos.anifics.com

Additionally the author of the work is allowed a single rebuttal, provided it is sent to the reviewer's e-mail box: dracos12@hotmail.com.  We regret that we can only allow a single response but our critics are in high demand and can only dedicate so much time to a single writer.

And now, without further adieu, we present the case of:
"The Evil Commentary Bureau vs The second Ranma Evolution fic out there"

<Begin ECB>
Disclaimer : I do not own Ranma½ or X-men evolution and no way even pretend
that they do.

ECB: At least the author starts off on the right foot.  That gives him points over half the folks we review.

Ranma will be placed before the Saffron saga.

ECB: Gotcha Mr. Author.

X-men Evolution will varie and timelimes might change

ECB: Varie='Vary' and 'timelime'='timeline' (presuming of course this isn't a yummy Pluto lemon like it should be).  Spellcheck is your friend.  Stop leaving it in the corner with your dunce cap on.  Additionally, this raises a yellow flag in the Make Sense school.  An author should have a firm grasp of what they are using before they start.


___________Ranma Evolution_____________

ECB: RED FLAG FOR BAD TASTE.  It's very poor form to steal another author's title.  Lu already used this in his rather superior fic "Evolution", which oddly enough had the same filename as yours.  "Read his.  It's just like yours...only it doesn't suck!"


                                       Part 1 - The evolution begins

ECB: CAPITALS ARE YOUR FRIIIIIEEEEEEND!  Or at least they should be.  That title's darn lonely without it's capitalized first letters of every word.  It should be "The Evolution Begins".

           Ranma dodge blow for blow furiously, trying not to get his by

ECB: Oh my poor past tense.  He slew you before you even had a chance to shine.  Dead within the grave you laid, for you had not 'dodged' his furious blows.  And grammar, poor grammar, he slapped you cruely.  Forsooth the line: "Ranma dodged blow after blow furiously as he tried not to get hit by his angry fiancee."  You were never given the chance to live!

his angered inazuke, Akane on the other hand was striking for a killing

ECB: This is the Japanese calling.  Yeah, we want our language back.  Stop mutilating it to try and look 'cool'.  Additionally, I have Takahashi on line 3, and boy is she angry.  You've claimed you were starting at a certain point in canon and proceeded to transplant Akane's character with that of a raving lunatic psychotic killer!   What manga were you reading?  You've failed to denote 'alt-universe' for your Ranma fic, telling us that we should expect an Akane reasonably drawn from that section of the canon, not from fanon.

point on Ranma.  Lately the times have been more hectic than usual and the
old man has gotten more and more cowardly.  Not to mention the other 3

ECB: Tenses, my kingdom for proper tenses!  Who will give me these dear things?  And you used a number in a literary work.   Wretched boy, have you not learned to spell out 'three'?  Is this too difficult to manage?  If so, do not write!  Additionally, why bother bashing Genma here?  Does it serve a purpose other than to alienate Genma fans?

fiance's Genma 'forgot' to mention to everyone.  Ranma dodged each blow

ECB: Step right up folks.  Cannon fodder fiancees just for your fics!  We mass produce them by the thousands and never even give them a name.  After all, you might think they have some purpose if they were named.  Nope, all of our cannon fodder fiancees come pure and unnamed for all of your unscrupulous poor writing purposes.

with ease, but his eyes showed that his mind wasn't on the fight, in fact
he was dreaming of a past once true.

ECB: A past once true?  Woah, we dealing in metaphysics here... or we are dealing with a pretentious who doesn't know what his words mean.  One of those.

6 years ago--------------

ECB: Yes, right during the nekoken training.  This is such a wise and sensible place to insert in a new character.  And remind me why in hell is he suddenly thinking of this almost a year into canon?  Spontaneous Memory Regurgitation!  Yessiree folks, you too can remember where your lost socks were five years ago just because your distracted!

           Ranma was smiling as he half-heartedly dodges blows from a

ECB: Okay buddy boy, this is the tense mafia.  Get your tenses right before we break your kneecaps!

pretty little brown haired girl, she was screaming at Ranma but at the same

ECB: Unacknowledged character change.  At around 6 years of martial arts  training, Ranma should be able to dance around the untrained kitty with ease.  Active face muscles, I wish I could laugh, scream, smile, and converse at the same time.  I'd need several faces but I'm sure it would be cool.

time laughing and smiling "Ran-kun i will get you this time!" The little

ECB: This is the punctuation train, traveling from 'Reality' to 'Anywhere But Your Fic', Runon sentence boy missed it!

girl jumped at Ranma but ended up phasing right through him, when she hit
the ground she looked at her hands then at Ranma.  Ranma stood wide eyed
staring at the girl, the girl started crying and a loud crash boomed behind
her as a sentinel came from nowhere.  "Mutant gene located : commencing

ECB: Yes,  sentinels were around then.  With this level of hunting capability.  And even presuming they are, why in the world would either of those ten year old be alive?  RIP Ranma who would have to attack the sentinel or be damned out of character.

destruction of target" The sentinel reached forward and twin fire beams
erupted from it's fingers. Try as he might Ranma couldn't get there in time
before a large eruption tore the ground out from the girl and kicked up
dust.

ECB: Yes, what a sensible place to shift out of flashback.  Sensible to a retard that is.  This has absolutely no effect where you end it.  It captures nothing.  You might as well just replace the whole scene with: "Hey, I'm trying to contrive some shit to hook up Ranma and kitty.  Insert Contrived Shit Here!".

PRESENT--------------



           "Kit-chan!" Ranma screamed out in primal rage as the mallet
neared his head, his eyes turned from a ice blue to a golden glow and his
aura burst around him, dust picking up and chunks of ground cracking around
him as his scream carried through the town of Nermia.  Ranma stood in the

ECB: Make Sense promptly shoots you in the face.  It also breaks your keyboard.  It then requests  that your parents Never Breed Again.  This is the most wretchedly contrived unplanned piece of trash I've seen in a week.  And given I am sent some of the worst fics in fanfiction, that's saying something.

center of a crater breathing hard, his features not seen by anyone, but
streaks of tears flowing down his face as he started up the side of the
crater.  His aura still pulsating and lightning strikes crackling against
the ground as he walked away from a stunned Akane.  He had no idea where he

ECB: Why do you forsake grammar?

was going, nor did he care at the moment.  Life for him was dead six years
ago and it was hard to smile genuinely.

ECB: I don't know how you can stand to write that.  It's so utterly poorly conceived that I'd feel sick tossing it out in a spamfic.  

(Xavior Mansion)

ECB: Xavier Mansion can be seen on your right.  Not to be confused with unresearched unchecked bad fanfiction mispellings found on your left.

           Cerebral bleeped out of control as the registry of another
mutant appeared on earth, this time was different however.  Cerebral

ECB: Sure it detected another mutant on the other side of the world without checking and forgetting that as of yet Ranma has not demonstrated anything beyond what he did daily.

registered the mutant in a SS class, which wasn't possible since even
xavior and magneto were A classes.  Xavior's eyes were wide as he stared at

ECB: And someone forgets to check their source material when making stupid stuff up.  Where's the challenge anyhow if Ranma is a bloody god and Magneto's paltry powers are the 'nominal max level' of all previous mutants?  What's he going to fight?  Supersentinels?  Pardon me while I call plagiarist on you then.  Because you are now frankly ripping devices clearly from Lu's work.  Additionally, it just occured to me that Kitty is not Japanese.  This makes it even more implausible for her to be speaking in Japanese above.

what the helmet was showing him and instantly called all the Xmen into the
room "Xmen, your assistance is needed, join me in cerebral's chambers"
Soon the door opened and eight people walked through, stopping before the
professor.  "What is it Charles" said a gruff voice coming from the man

ECB: By my great aunt formatting, what have you done?  You forgot to paragraph break or divide perspectives.   It's just a big blob.  And Logan walks around as he shaves?  When called by Xavier?  Error, The Pod People have taken over Logan!

shaving with metal claws coming from his wrist.  "There has been a new
mutant registered in the district of Nermia, i wish for you to check it

ECB: The sign that this is fanon only.  Nerima.  Say it with me. N-E-R-I-M-A.  Not Nermia.  And that's on the other side of the world for demon's sake.  Capitalize "I" when it's a pronoun by itself.

out" Logan looked around then at Xavior "let me get this straight bub, you
want ALL of us to check on one lousy mutant?" Logan growled at the impossed

ECB: May I suggest the usage of a spell checker?  You need one badly.

insult and sheathed his claws.  "Please take no offense Logan, this mutant
should he lose control of his powers will need to be taken down by all the
Xmen." Scott Summers looked at Xavior, "what are his mutant powers
professor?" Xavior looked down at his hovering wheeless chair "cerebral
could not register that information, but we do know it's in a class all
it's own, as you all know Magneto and I are A class mutants, and yourselves
are B class" Nods were seen throughout the room, some uncertain.  "Well
this new mutant registered as a SS class."  Gasps were heard and surprise
was shown even on Logans face.

ECB: SS is completely meaningless.  It's a gibberish term in this context.  Why even surprise is occuring is absurd.

(back in Nermia)

ECB: Have you heard of a wonderful thing  called scene breakers?  They look like:
-----------------------------------------------
or
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
or
***********************************************
or any of a dozen other better ways to separate scenes without appearing contrived.


           Ranma had been walking for hours at a time now and he still had

ECB:AIYEEEEEE MY EYES! My poor eyes subjected to another page long paragraph.  Here my machete will help you.  CUT!  CUT!  CUT!  Never mind your enter key, everyone knows a machete to the face is the best way to make your paragraphs short and succinct.

no idea what he was looking for and his aura still hasn't calmed down.  He
looked up at a passing sign and blinked 'Tokyo district 13 kilometers' his
eyes widened and he looked back the way he came and noticed the trail of
destruction.  "Oh my god, what have i done" he looked down at his hands,
then a wetness became apparent against his palm as he realized he had been
crying.  'No, real men don't cry.... why was i crying anyways'.  Ranma

ECB: There is so much wrong there I don't know where to begin.  Whether to start with the poor grammar, the bad characterization, the wretched punctuation, the illogical hand/face confusion, or simply the fact that the plot stinks.  As I love Making Sense, I'll have to start with the plot.  You could make sense easily, but you don't bother to do so.  No time spent making this believable.  Simply, yeah, I wrote this.  Aren't I cool?  Well, you aren't.

sighed and turned back, deciding to head to the Tendo household, and
hopefully get there before dinner.  So in a burst of energy he took off
like a rocket heading for Nermia.  It took Ranma well over four hours to

ECB: Ranma takes four hours to travel 13 kilometers?  Since WHEN?!

get back into Nermia, but he didn't mind, it gave him time to sort out his
thoughts, when he rounded the corner for the tendo's home he smelt smoke
and his danger sense kicked in.  Ranma jumped over the wall and narrowed
his eyes in anger as he saw the Tendo's house on fire, and Soun, Nabiki and
Kasumi outside trying to put it out.  Ranma jumped down by the pond and
focused his Ki into the palm of his hand "Moko Takabisha!" the energy flew
into the end of the pond, knocking the water up onto the house, putting out
all the flames.  As soon as the fire was in check, Soun broke out into one

ECB:... and destroying the pond.  Besides the fact water wouldn't flow that way no matter how you  hit it.

of his famous crying fits.  "WAHHH MY BABY GIRL WAS TAKEN BY A PHOENIX, AND
IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT RANMA!" Ranma stared incredulously at Soun "why the
heck is my fault Oyaji!" Soun looked at Ranma in his demon head form
"because you weren't here to protect my baby, now she was taken away to
China to the phoenix temple!" Ranma growled in the base of his throat and

ECB: You haven't ever read the saffron arc have you?  And this is poorly thought out and highly contrived even if you weren't trying to interleave canon.  News Flash: China=HUGE COUNTRY.  Temple=small.  Ranma rushing off without finding a region or garnering allies= Yes Mr. Jones, just as soon as the big men in white coats give you your daily pill.

took off toward the sea port.



(in the air)

ECB: Yeah, I'm just hovering in the air.  No other setting, such as a jet, is required.  And look, I can't fly!  Wheeeeeeeeeee!

           "Do you guys really believe that this mutant is this powerful?"
Spyke looked at everyone, expecting a response and got one from the least
likely candidate "well, if it's who i think it is, then yes i believe he

ECB: Yes sir, we are state of the art here.  None of those darn obsolete breaks for perspective shift.  No, we use the top of the line all in one paragraph model.  Who cares if it's ugly and bad formatting.  Or that it causes eyestrain.  We certainly don't.


will be just that powerful.  If not more so" Logan said as he laid back and
closed his eyes for the trip.  Kitty, AKA Shadowcat looked blankly at the

ECB: This is just great.  Absolutely Great AKA IT SUCKS ASS!  I mean you are a genius author AKA DUMBASS WHO HASN'T A CLUE.  I'm being needlessly cruel here but this is the biggest cop-out.

walls of the Black bird.  "Hey Kitty, what's wrong?" Kurt AKA Nightcrawler
asked in a concerned voice, staring at the girl.  "Huh? oh it's nothing
Kurt, just thinking about a old friend is all."  She smiled weakly then
went back to the staring contest with the black birds panels.  Kurt looked

ECB: A staring contest....with a piece of polished metal.  Now I've seen it all.

at the girl then got up going to the other side of the jet, sitting next to
Jean grey "Hey Jean, can you do me a favor and look into Kitty's mind, to
find out what's bothering her?" Kurt looked at Jean with concern in his

ECB:Yes, let's just invade the minds of our comrades.  Never mind that it's terribly OOC of her in canon and she goes out of her way not to do so usually.

eyes and she smiled "sure, but i am not going to pry deep, just enough to
satisfy your curiosity" She looked over at Kitty and used her powers on
her.



(Kitty's mind)

ECB:We love gratiotous insensible flashbacks don't we?

           A young boy stood above her and was smiling, one hand behind
his head with false cheer in his voice "Hey Kit-chan, are you gonna sit on
the ground all day and whine, or are you gonna get payback?" young-Kitty
looked at the boy then smiled, getting up and ignoring the pain.  Chasing
after the boy she threw mock punches at him and he was dodging them with
ease until she dove at him, and through him.  Young-Kitty looked at her
hands and then at the boy, as soon as she saw his widened eyes she broke
down crying.  That is when there was a loud crashing and screaming, then a
rage filled voice screamed out "KIT-CHAN!!!!" then all hell broke loose and
something stopped Jean from going further.

ECB: Again conflict, Kitty can't fight worth a damn even when trained.  The whole scene is painfully contrived.

(in the jet)

ECB: First we're floating in the sky and now we're in a jet?  Wow.  We move fast.

           "That's weird, she shut out all memories after she first used
her powers" Jean looked over at Kitty with a puzzled expression then sighed
"sorry Kurt i can't tell you anything i don't know"  Kurt smiled and
thanked her anyways, then went back to his seat.  He stared at Kitty and
wondered what she was thinking about.  Kitty on the other hand was worried
more about what would happen should she run into her Ran-kun again.
'Should i run into him again and he freaks out, i don't know if i will be
able to live with myself, he was the first guy to ever like me for me and
not for my supposed beauty' She sighed as she thought back to that fateful
day.

ECB: Ahhh...personal monolgues within a third person omniscent.  They go right well with...  right well with...  They ought virtually never be used because they go poorly with everything.

(Kitty's Memories)



           A explosion destroyed the streets behind her and a giant robot
appeared, thrusting it's hand out and shot fire beams at her, destroying
the ground around her and knocking her into the sewer system.  She was
about to run when she heard a scream "KIT-CHAN!!!!!!!" then the earth shook
and became a bright golden color as everything seemed to move, and knocking
pieces of the street into the sewer system with her.  She looked up and
wondered what could be causing such a mess, but when she got up there all
she saw was a trashed sentinel and a trail of destruction directly behind
it.

ECB: And this just wouldn't get detected or noticed at all would it?  "In Japan, no one can hear you blow up a city block." BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.  And where is cerebral during all of this?
Cerebral: Snore.

______________________END______________________



Well this is for right now, tell me what you all think and tell me if i
should continue this, and yes you have guessed it, Ranma and Kitty have
feelings for each other.

ECB: No really?  REALLY?  YOU MEAN THE OVERLY CONTRIVED RELATIONSHIP THAT YOU'VE BEEN HAMMERING INTO US THE ENTIRE TIME IS REAL?  You should not continue this.  You should take courses to improve your writing and read a good deal more to figure out what is good.  You should learn how to Make Sense.  And you should disappear into the night like all the other knuckleheads.

SSJ Guyver signing off

ECB: Kind Fearless Leader Signing off.

e-mail your comments to Recca@aemail4u.com      Subject : Ranma Evolution -
tryout


ECB:Gotcha bloke, right in yer blimey e-mail box this goes.
<End ECB>

[Dracos]

And in one of those lucky instances, this author accepts our standing offer to rebut the judgement of the ECB.  Documented here is both his brilliantly scripted response and my retort.

<begin ECB>
Dear Mr. Lockwood,

 It saddens me greatly that you cannot appriciate our quite genuine attempt to better your work.  I'm afraid to ask where your shift key was during the majority of your e-mail.  It definitely wasn't being used to capitalize your words when they prefaced a sentence.  If you wrote this out of 'fun' as you put it than you should have stated that you were not desiring C&C, as it is presumed that you are when you publically publish your works.  As regards my credentials, I am someone who not only can write, but can edit at a level that is well beyond ninty-nine percent of people in the fanfiction world.  Most, as my e-mail box and forums tell me daily, appriciate my work to assist them in improving themselves to even higher levels of writing capabilities.  I will have to attest two things regarding your percentage.  At least one of them is true.
A)You failed math, specifically fractions and percentages.
B)You are lying your head off.
In my years of experience, even the greatest authors don't claim hundreds of complimentary reviews for an initial chapter.  Why don't they claim this?  Because it never happens.  Even in the swinehole that is ff.net you do not find a hundred complimentary reviews on a single chapter.  Even after the chapter has  been up for months.  I'd estimate that you got maybe five "Pleze continue" type e-mails that take half a second to run off.  I'm certain that makes you feel warm and fuzzy believing everyone loves you.  Generally the response out of a screening of ten fellow writers was along the lines of "Ugh." when exposed to your work.  The difference is of course that there is enough trash out there that they don't bother to tell you that your story requires massive rewriting.  If you don't like criticism, than publish that clearly at the top of your works.  Certainly the top fourty percent of the fanfiction community will immediately never look at your stories again, but you won't get criticized.  Interesting 'we all' usage when you request that your work is never again accepted by a member of my group.  I can at least validly claim plurality by representing the vested interests of those who do quite thoroughly enjoy seeing my typing.  You can claim 'yourself'?  Maybe 'your imaginary friend'?  Pity neither yourself nor your friends are going to correct your mistakes or tell you how to improve.

On a final note, my ECB of your work was done in notepad.  Alas I myself had a single spelling error in it that escaped screening.  Of course, I bothered to screen my works for errors.  What's your excuse knowing you were publically presenting it?  Was rereading your own works to make sure that they shone too painful for your eyes?

Your time is up, it has been a pleasure to include you in the Evil Commentary Bureau archives.  As always our readers will enjoy seeing yet another author waddle in mediocrity.  Know that your own attempt at immortalizing your own incompetence has brought sunshine to other people's lives.

Dracos
Founder of the Evil Commentary Bureau

>From: Steve lockwood <Recca@aemail4u.com>
>Reply-To: Recca@aemail4u.com
>To: "Philip Bloom" <dracos12@hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: ECB: Ranma Evolution-tryout
>Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 10:43:40 -0700 (PDT)
>
>ok listen up, not only did i write this out of fun and just for the
fact that i like writing, i never said i did it well.  Who exactly are you to be critisizing something a author does out of his/her own heart and deicdes to share it with the world.  There is nothing out there that has to say it needs to be perfect.
>
>as a percent, i've recieved over 99% for a good writing, yours is the only critisism i've recieved and i don't take well to people who think they get to judge others just by the way they talk, or write in this matter.
>
>So if you aren't gonna be genuinely helpful, don't bother talking at all, we all don't enjoy seeing your typing as well as you do.
>
>BTW i use just regular wordpad, nothing special, nothing more, nothing less.
<End ECB>

Fearless Leader
And people wonder why I spend my time with authors who want to improve

[DP]

Wow, that was painful, almost worthy of Kapito.  Nice work BTW.  I don't really have much room to talk about someone's errors, since I make plenty of them myself and rarely check my fics before posting, but I use Wordpad exclusively and it's always worked well for me.

[werehawk509]

Good someone did fry the rearend of the writer in question...

And using wordpad to write...With all  those wordprocessor with spellcheckers avaible out there??? One can download OpenOffice for free and it has a spellchecker...(51Mb. download)


WMD