What are you reading?

[Jason_Miao]

This updated earlier this month.

[Dracos]

I tried to read that fic, but couldn't make it past the first chapter. Trying to redeem someone like Cell, whose entire motivation up until that point has been pretty much "destroy things and kill people for the lulz"...I can't get past my brain screaming THIS IS STUPID at me. Pity, since the writing is semi-decent, it seems.

Sleepy observation:

Part of the problem is that the villians past Freiza (and crew) largely have increasing flat motivations that are basically "Destroy All Life".

Earlier Villians often had at least things they were trying to accomplish (Kidnap Goku, Conquer the World with a wish, Gain immortality, create the world's strongest army, etc) with killing things being hobby type fare.

Later villians are "Kill everything that ever lived".  Starting kinda with Cell.  Anyhow, his whole shtick is prove I'm perfect, which leaves little motivational room for it.

[Arakawa]

Earlier Villians often had at least things they were trying to accomplish (Kidnap Goku, Conquer the World with a wish, Gain immortality, create the world's strongest army, etc) with killing things being hobby type fare.

I think Commander Red has my favourite motivation out of all the Dragonball series villains :)

http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Red

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8559605/1/Youth

Ranma-fic: Happosai escapes years early, causing lots of changes. The biggest is deciding to 'borrow' Ranma for awhile to train him. It's still not far along yet but the first chapter has potential.

Spoiler: ShowHide

One niggle: I think Genma's ability to train Ranma is being short-sold. I don't disagree with the idea that Happosai could be a better teacher than Genma, but it still leaves me a bit wary.

[Anastasia]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7207791/23/From-Fake-Dreams

Updated. Decent chapter, no comments right now.

[Dracos]

Earlier Villians often had at least things they were trying to accomplish (Kidnap Goku, Conquer the World with a wish, Gain immortality, create the world's strongest army, etc) with killing things being hobby type fare.

I think Commander Red has my favourite motivation out of all the Dragonball series villains :)

http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Red

*checks memory*  That was the guy that just wanted to be tall, wasn't it?  Yup.  it was. :)

Yeah, again, better motivations on the earlier cast, even when they were simple or stupid.  They were things that the person would live with that was a mere part of their lives.  Cell's 'Demonstrate my perfection and murder everyone' was kinda lame and is hard to do anything with.  Vegita's 'Be Immortal' leaves far more room.

[alethiophile]

I liked Commander Red's motivation. You've got to respect someone who's willing to challenge a superpowered army-killing alien just so he can be tall. And Adjutant Black's reaction to the whole thing was priceless.

Vegeta similarly. He's actually got a character. The androids even do, especially 18. But Cell...he's not really a character, just a phenomenon. A human-shaped, smug phenomenon that wants to kill everyone. I can't imagine him really changing. Hence why I couldn't finish the story.

Hell, even Buu has better motivation than that. Or at least one of him does.

[Grahf]

Your comments are understandable, Aleth. Since you read a little you probably know that the reason that Cell changed is because he got hit in the head really hard and it made him good. It's a pretty lame excuse, although I couldn't really see anything else that would work better.

There is the argument later on that Cell didn't have a choice in being a dick/monster, since that's what Doctor Gero programmed him to be. However, that gets into stuff like suppressing "noble traits" which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since those things aren't really in DNA. Cell claims that he was given the megalomania of Frieza, the arrogance of Vegeta, stuff like that. Problem is of course, again, those things don't come from DNA, it would have taken the actual memories to do that, which Gero didn't have.

Admittedly, I'm still reading it, but I can absolutely understand where the criticism of it comes from.

[Jason_Miao]

However, that gets into stuff like suppressing "noble traits" which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since those things aren't really in DNA. Cell claims that he was given the megalomania of Frieza, the arrogance of Vegeta, stuff like that. Problem is of course, again, those things don't come from DNA, it would have taken the actual memories to do that, which Gero didn't have.

There are a number of people who do not really have a handle on what DNA does and does not control.  This translates into their writing (most oh-no-clones stories from about ten years ago fall into this category.  Most of those writers seem shocked when I told them that identical twins are naturally occurring clones.)

[Kt3]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8559605/1/Youth

Ranma-fic: Happosai escapes years early, causing lots of changes. The biggest is deciding to 'borrow' Ranma for awhile to train him. It's still not far along yet but the first chapter has potential.

Spoiler: ShowHide

One niggle: I think Genma's ability to train Ranma is being short-sold. I don't disagree with the idea that Happosai could be a better teacher than Genma, but it still leaves me a bit wary.

There were a couple of things that felt wrong about that story, and none of it had to do with

Spoiler: ShowHide

Genma's ability to train Ranma.  Instead, Happy had Ranma for, what, a couple of months of training, long enough to just turn him into a shota and not much different at all because of it.

I'm actually fine with that concept and I think it's rather neat, but that's absolutely not the vibes it was giving in the first chapter, where Happy looked like he was going to be training Ranma to be far more like himself, and to then have Ranma take some of Happy's bad habits, but in exchange be an absolutely, hideously stronger fighter.  I'm just getting conflicting messages from the fic.

Also, that Cologne could detect Happy from a continent away?  It honestly made the whole thing sound like it was just a rather thin excuse (from the wrong genre, no less) to have everyone in China "level up" a bit.  I would've been like fifty times happier if instead, even though the exact same thing would've happened in the end, the justification changed from being able to detect Happosai and then deducing that everyone in the village must have far more martial arts training, to having a comical string of "bad luck" related events happen, culminating in a faint sense of Happosai.  It keeps the lighthearted sense, while still providing a good reason why Cologne would do that.

Not the best hopes for this fic so far.  Hopefully there'll be some saving grace in how the Tendo sisters might have been changed... but based on how they essentially did the exact same song and dance they did in chapter 2 that they did in canon, I'm not saving my breath.

[Ebiris]

Dragonball Z kinda already did have Cell inherit traits from his 'donors' that aren't purely physical - he could do everyone's special moves.

[Dracos]

Just actually read the 3rd Omake of Big Human on Campus.  Ranma goes to hell.  It's very amusing.

[alethiophile]

Delenda Est updated. Fun stuff.

[Dracos]

So did On the Wings of an Eagle: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8118551/8/On-The-Wings-Of-An-Eagle

[Anastasia]

Damn, I meant to link that. Awesome story.