What are you reading?

[Dracos]

I reread that just the other day.  It was still fun.

[Jason_Miao]

@Ara: AK-47 vs. schoolchildren.  Certainly not written with the American audience in mind.

(also, as you said: bear?)

re: Zero Interface, I liked that fic.  I decided to see if I could find info on the the ZnT, since it sounded interesting.  Then I ran across some sites that basically called the male lead a doormat with no distinguishing characteristics without actually phrasing it that way, and someone in #sr (I think Bri) said the female lead was a perpetual 'tsun' ... and I decided that it no longer sounded interesting.

Random thoughts while writing this post:
(1) I'd want to see a parody that plays this straight.  Extremely attractive girl A-ko can't keep a boyfriend because whenever she hooks up with someone, she goes completely bi-polar.  Anime damage laws do not apply - if someone is hit on the head with an entire car, it will not get better in an hour.  She wants to change, and tries to seek help or use tricks so she can have a proper romance, but is continually thwarted by the anime club, who see her as their living "anime goddess in the flesh" or somesuch.

(2) I need to to work in the phrase "Set phasers on 'tsun'" into a story.  Just because.

[Ebiris]

I think this was the best summary of ZnT I ever read:

This series is a time sink trap. There is just barely enough glimpses of plot threads in the first season to sucker you into staying with it. There are a couple of really interesting threads (Sword of the Commoners, the link between the two worlds, the civil war, a possible war between commoners and mages, the true nature of magic, and the fact that the main character occasionally exhibits some real balls) that keep you watching through the cliches, the fanservice, and the tsundere waiting hoping for them to finally take hold. Don't do it. Nothing good actually ever pulls together. Not horrible (I didn't turn it off in disgust), but certainly not good.

I enjoyed the first series, but as I started the second and they'd dropped the ball on every thread raised in the first to focus on harem anime bullshit I quickly abandoned it. It could've been great.

[Dracos]

Well, part of its problem is that it's intended as light fetish work.  The Heroine beating up the Hero is not intended to be delivered as just slapstick like it is in many physical comedy series (from Three Stooges to Ranma), but instead part of delivering an S&M servant/master type relationship in the middle of an eroge cast.

It gets written a lot about because it offers 2 things:

A)A setting with a lot of hooks, very few of which were fleshed out and lots of them leading toward dystopian disasters and world changing conflicts with little effort.

B)A terrible main character and a female character who is terrible, insecure, and potentially horribly powerful.  So there's lots of openings.  Mentor.  Disgusted Hero.  Friend.  Romantic.  Romantic Comedy.  Because she's such a bad character, anyone that can overwhelm her can become interesting, and then go after one of the hooks.

[thepanda]

Because she's such a bad character, anyone that can overwhelm her can become interesting, and then go after one of the hooks.

And yet so many people doing ZnT crossovers miss this! What's the point of replacing the hero if you don't do anything with it? Just dumping super powerful familiars into the story doesn't mean anything if they don't interact with the world in some meaningful way.

Damn the stations of the canon! I've read so many 'familiar fights Guiche' scenes that only exist because the author felt they had to put that in. It isn't any wonder why so few of those fics get beyond the Crumbling Earth bit.

And that's not even mentioning the poor excuses people come up with to explain why any of their powerful replacement heroes would even stay as Louise's familiar. When your excuses make the canon seem well thought out. . .

[Jason_Miao]

And yet so many people doing ZnT crossovers miss this! What's the point of replacing the hero if you don't do anything with it? Just dumping super powerful familiars into the story doesn't mean anything if they don't interact with the world in some meaningful way.

That's just bad writing in general.  It's no different then all of those stories where the hero w/powers/knowledge goes back in time, but won't change anything because "the future may change beyond his/her ability to control", or purported crossovers which just amounts to characters getting a name change and maybe an extra word or two in dialogue.  It's not limited to fics of any particular series.

This isn't limited to bad writers either.  Anyone remember Wilde's "Ranma-Starwars" crossover, which was basically just Starwars?  Jamie Wilde was a pretty good writer, and this story was supposedly his Magnum Opus, but I remember pointing out that he wrote literally one scene (which, IIRC, dealt with Kasumi in a B-wing) that wasn't event-for-event from the movies.

[Brian]

Anyone remember Wilde's "Ranma-Starwars" crossover[...]?

I'm glad to say: Nope!

[thepanda]

Anyone remember Wilde's "Ranma-Starwars" crossover[...]?

Can't say I do.

[Dracos]

Because she's such a bad character, anyone that can overwhelm her can become interesting, and then go after one of the hooks.

And yet so many people doing ZnT crossovers miss this! What's the point of replacing the hero if you don't do anything with it? Just dumping super powerful familiars into the story doesn't mean anything if they don't interact with the world in some meaningful way.

Damn the stations of the canon! I've read so many 'familiar fights Guiche' scenes that only exist because the author felt they had to put that in. It isn't any wonder why so few of those fics get beyond the Crumbling Earth bit.

And that's not even mentioning the poor excuses people come up with to explain why any of their powerful replacement heroes would even stay as Louise's familiar. When your excuses make the canon seem well thought out. . .

Well, to be fair, the Guiche fight (or something in its vein) serves a very useful narrative convention.

The core basis of most ZnT stories is:

Louise summons something unexpected.  Because it is strange and unexpected, her peers do not take it seriously.  Neither does she.  Then the summoned thing overwhelms a peer, indicating that The World Is bigger than they think.  It's a tone-setter.  It is like Ranma's arrival at the tendos.  In a very short sequence, the nature of how this authors take on the world is going to be different can be delivered.

That many authors lack a plan past that is clear, but also the unoriginality of their takes on that scene also delivers a lot.

[Jason_Miao]

I think it was posted on the FFML in 1997?  1998?

*checks

Oh, here: http://ffmlsearch.inklesspen.com/message/show/1186904408.M60066P12296Q78877.euterpe

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7733374/1/Unforeseen_Consequences

Louise summons Kyuubey the Eldritch Abomination. Shenanigans ensue as things go majorly off the expected plot rails.

[Yuthirin]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7733374/1/Unforeseen_Consequences

Louise summons Kyuubey the Eldritch Abomination. Shenanigans ensue as things go majorly off the expected plot rails.

* Yuthirin eyeballs.

[Anastasia]

Whaaat?

[Brian]

Shenanigans ensue as things go majorly off the expected plot rails.

FnZ.  Plot rails.  What?

[Anastasia]

Well, plot rails for a FnZ fanfic. See the discussion above.