Quote from: Jason_Miao on December 09, 2011, 01:01:57 PM
Haigeki chapter 5 (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/5/Haigeki)
Spoiler: Ranma turns into a girl
Just came here to post that.
Fun chapter, no deep thoughts on it. Ranma should've bailed when he had a chance, but oh well. I do really dig on how well and deeply the author has worked out how haigeki, shuken and tenki work. It's great to add depth to things.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 09, 2011, 01:20:07 PM
I do really dig on how well and deeply the author has worked out how haigeki, shuken and tenki work. It's great to add depth to things.
The explicit chi=magic bit usually irritates the hell out of me, but the writer has set up his own system rather than just try to hand-waive everything so that characters can fart lightning bolts. So that's okay.
Mmm, oddly the background depth annoys the crap out of me, probably more than It's Just Magic. Seeing a longish essay that is summarized in Girls are prettier, pretty equals power, therefore Magical girls seems less acceptable then just going Evil Army of Magical Girls. Still reading, but I probably shouldn't since I'm both reading and being Judgemental of it.
The fights are pretty cool, but at the same time, Ranma seems dumb and it seems like it mandates stupidity at this point for her to win. The enemy has to hold onto the idiot ball hard to allows a victory. It seems right now the power levels are: Normal Person > Martial Artist > Nerima Tier > Ranma Tier > Weakest Magical Girls > (The Good Guys) > Advanced Magical Girls > Syaoran > (Ranma Current) > Hecate/Pluto > Strong Magical Girls > The Director/Mary Sue (Note: Hecate/pluto might be on the other side of strong magical girls. Can't tell, they can Walk Through Timestop). The first leap was managed with replacing Ranma with Magical Girl Ranma. Fine, understandable. But he also pretty much rejects cooperation with the others in all but the most superficial of ways. So basically, it's plot-wise seeming to go toward expecting DBZ'ish power gains from her to compete with the fact that "Walk through a timestop and kill everybody" is not top tier at all and the upper level folks are wielding shit like Gae Bolg.
I think managing a magical boy thing in the environment would have been more ambitious narratively. Ranma is often holding onto the idiot ball reasonably strongly in order to both acknowledge "These girls can totally wreck me" and deny "Some success is good". The lack of cooperative elements seems almost unreasonable in face of enemies that make herb look like a grade-school bully.
Is the Director Usagi? If that's Usagi, then did someone stronger turn her at some point earlier meaning there's an even more ridiculous power level of reality alteration?
And I've lost track again really on what all these magical girls are for. They're making them, to experiment on the process of making them?
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 06:16:50 PM
Normal Person > Martial Artist > Nerima Tier > Ranma Tier > Weakest Magical Girls > (The Good Guys) > Advanced Magical Girls > Syaoran > (Ranma Current) > Hecate/Pluto > Strong Magical Girls > The Director/Mary Sue (Note: Hecate/pluto might be on the other side of strong magical girls. Can't tell, they can Walk Through Timestop).
I don't think a strict equivalency is really right. Magical girls aren't automatically stronger than a person, as much as they have a trick that compensates for it. I got the impression that most aren't as strong as Ranma if he can get through shuken and all that. The way it imposes a perfect reality over normal reality reminds me a lot of Reality Marbles from the Nasuverse.
QuoteI think managing a magical boy thing in the environment would have been more ambitious narratively. Ranma is often holding onto the idiot ball reasonably strongly in order to both acknowledge "These girls can totally wreck me" and deny "Some success is good". The lack of cooperative elements seems almost unreasonable in face of enemies that make herb look like a grade-school bully.
I hope it goes there eventually, as Ranma masters the megami no ooi and all that. Anyway, I don't think Ranma was stupid as much as overconfident, as Ranma tends to be. He wasn't going to be willing to leave Akane captured if he could help it, so he took a big gamble. Now that Ranma has a way to beat them more reliably, I don't blame him at all for doing it. The gamble didn't pay off, but I know why he did it.
QuoteIs the Director Usagi? If that's Usagi, then did someone stronger turn her at some point earlier meaning there's an even more ridiculous power level of reality alteration?
I'm fairly sure it's not Usagi, but who knows? Considering that magical girl status can be forced if you understand how to manipulate the forces involved, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a non-magical girl that figured out the tricks. She's using them to her advantage now and fucking everything all up. As the essay notes, tenki is a shortcut to enlightenment and power.
QuoteAnd I've lost track again really on what all these magical girls are for. They're making them, to experiment on the process of making them?
It's still unclear to the exact goals of the PPI. They're making them to perfect the process and/or make an army, I'd reckon. They certainly seem offense-oriented enough.
---
I have a suspicion that I'm not going to like the next chapter or two, though. It's going to turn into a kludge to make Ranma into more of a girl. Brainwashing + possible magic + a memory erasing horn noted as Gondul's gear? Urgh. I rather wish Ranma had gotten away, as I'd enjoyed the story until that point. Long odds, big gambles and a lot of fun? Sign me up. I'm worried the story's gonna go off track. In particular, I have a suspicion of how things are going to turn out, roughly:
1. Ranma is brainwashed/magicked into being a real girl/embracing things, or stuck as one due to tenki and shit.
2. Since Akane's there, what do you want to bet something's going to happen there. It's the perfect way to put those two into a situation together and blah blah blah, 1 millonth rehash of Ranma/Akane shit.
3. Akane breaks Ranma's mindcontrol/amnesia.
I've a lot of tolerance for 'Ranma as a girl' or "Magical Girl Ranma" but yeah:
Urgh. I rather wish Ranma had gotten away, as I'd enjoyed the story until that point. Long odds, big gambles and a lot of fun?
This seems like more of a fun story. To me, the writer has regularly been having Ranma avoid the things that set this up (No communication with allies, constant lone-wolfness, lack of any viable intermediary goals or any comradery).
I blame Ranma for being overconfident in as much as: If he's not confident enough to face Miss Walk Through Timstop in a fight, why in the world is he 'confident enough' to go face her boss(es)? I was really expecting the overconfidence to be "I take a shot at Chiyo" not "I run to try and sneak in (Even though they totally see me already) and then think I can beat down her bosses solo?"
It is a very ranma thing to do, but I dunno, it just requires so much blindness to 'Hey, they have a god damn army of these girls'.
I blame it on not wanting to leave Akane there. He'd see it as a fate worse than death, methinks.
True. It totally counts as one.
It could go Ukyo saving the day, but it's not like it's shown any bent toward letting non-ranma characters do anything to begin with.
Where did shampoo or her granny go anyway? I forget why the ancient heavy hitters aren't making any appearance in this so far.
Quote from: Anastasia on December 09, 2011, 06:35:59 PM
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 06:16:50 PM
Normal Person > Martial Artist > Nerima Tier > Ranma Tier > Weakest Magical Girls > (The Good Guys) > Advanced Magical Girls > Syaoran > (Ranma Current) > Hecate/Pluto > Strong Magical Girls > The Director/Mary Sue (Note: Hecate/pluto might be on the other side of strong magical girls. Can't tell, they can Walk Through Timestop).
I don't think a strict equivalency is really right. Magical girls aren't automatically stronger than a person, as much as they have a trick that compensates for it. I got the impression that most aren't as strong as Ranma if he can get through shuken and all that. The way it imposes a perfect reality over normal reality reminds me a lot of Reality Marbles from the Nasuverse.
It's reality marbles, sure, but what I mean is in a battle, they will win almost every time. It's not strength that I'm really saying so much as the result. If a character is a normal person that wears an item that makes them Unending Victory Man of Never Losing Any Fight, does the fact they can't lift 150 lbs, run a 10 minute mile, or touch their toes matter? Every martial artist aside from Ranma was painted as Complete Defeat against even the weaker magical girls. Even if they had a hundred tries and weren't surprised, it was painted that it wouldn't matter, because without having an equivelent CheatMode, they simply would never be able to connect and would eventually get hit with their magic.
I think the story paints it more as: Magical girls is playing rock paper scissors where someone is throwing Win. It doesn't matter how good you are at Rock Paper Scissors, the person throwing win just wins. Anyone who isn't throwing Win simply loses and when two people throw it, the person who can throw it harder almost always wins. In that respect, I think that the power list I have is pretty reasonable. Even Ranma with skill and magic was not only a loss, but a terrible get slaughtered without even damaging the armor of the other person loss against the Strong magical girl types. It's closer to the DBZ setup where skill stops matter when one of the guys has 'Blow up planet effortlessly' as a move.
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 08:46:00 PM
True. It totally counts as one.
It could go Ukyo saving the day, but it's not like it's shown any bent toward letting non-ranma characters do anything to begin with.
Where did shampoo or her granny go anyway? I forget why the ancient heavy hitters aren't making any appearance in this so far.
He could, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. The entire story has been written from Ranma's PoV in a unique style. It plays against the interests of the story to change that. Alas. I'm not sure either if there's a reason given, or if they're simply not involved right now for whatever reason.
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 09:07:23 PM
Quote from: Anastasia on December 09, 2011, 06:35:59 PM
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 06:16:50 PM
Normal Person > Martial Artist > Nerima Tier > Ranma Tier > Weakest Magical Girls > (The Good Guys) > Advanced Magical Girls > Syaoran > (Ranma Current) > Hecate/Pluto > Strong Magical Girls > The Director/Mary Sue (Note: Hecate/pluto might be on the other side of strong magical girls. Can't tell, they can Walk Through Timestop).
I don't think a strict equivalency is really right. Magical girls aren't automatically stronger than a person, as much as they have a trick that compensates for it. I got the impression that most aren't as strong as Ranma if he can get through shuken and all that. The way it imposes a perfect reality over normal reality reminds me a lot of Reality Marbles from the Nasuverse.
It's reality marbles, sure, but what I mean is in a battle, they will win almost every time. It's not strength that I'm really saying so much as the result. If a character is a normal person that wears an item that makes them Unending Victory Man of Never Losing Any Fight, does the fact they can't lift 150 lbs, run a 10 minute mile, or touch their toes matter? Every martial artist aside from Ranma was painted as Complete Defeat against even the weaker magical girls. Even if they had a hundred tries and weren't surprised, it was painted that it wouldn't matter, because without having an equivelent CheatMode, they simply would never be able to connect and would eventually get hit with their magic.
Ranma also figured out how to beat them in a few battles, with excellent speed. It's entirely possible with a bit of time to figure out the quirks he could do far better. He even remarks on it in chapter 4, how due to time constraints he has to take the best of several shitty options. He doesn't have the luxury of a training trip or the time to learn a new secret technique to counter, he has to use what he knows and has available from them. I wouldn't be surprised for a competent martial artist to be able to figure out how to disrupt magical girls and stand a chance. Hell, Akane and Ukyou never get a chance and none of the other big hitters are around.
Well, they don't technically have to change the point of view to have someone else save his bacon. It was done at the beginning.
Mmm...
You're kinda right, but there's a reason I reject that. Ranma has a time constraint. The Good Guy crew does not and only seems more knowledgable on how to counter specific advanced magical girls, while still being completely doomed if a strong one even looks their way, even as a group. It seems more a bemusement of the bad girls that the good guys are even still alive instead of having been killed during the numerous opportunities they had already during the fic.
I just don't see the hint that there is honestly a non-super-estoric way to approach it and that's sort of a given since they literally alter reality and rewrite your existence right out from under you. It's not something that generally allows for survival to 'train' against. Basically, I don't believe Ranma in the story when he thinks he could get around it without tearing his existance into some messed up thing because of how visibly capable the transformation makes them.
Ranma did win a few battles, but that's why I poke him just under it. In a straight fight, he couldn't win and only by digging really deep into trickery did he not get slaughtered.
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 09:24:52 PMYou're kinda right, but there's a reason I reject that. Ranma has a time constraint. The Good Guy crew does not and only seems more knowledgable on how to counter specific advanced magical girls, while still being completely doomed if a strong one even looks their way, even as a group. It seems more a bemusement of the bad girls that the good guys are even still alive instead of having been killed during the numerous opportunities they had already during the fic.
I just don't see the hint that there is honestly a non-super-estoric way to approach it and that's sort of a given since they literally alter reality and rewrite your existence right out from under you. It's not something that generally allows for survival to 'train' against. Basically, I don't believe Ranma in the story when he thinks he could get around it without tearing his existance into some messed up thing because of how visibly capable the transformation makes them.
Ranma did win a few battles, but that's why I poke him just under it. In a straight fight, he couldn't win and only by digging really deep into trickery did he not get slaughtered.
Well, the other good guys are all magical 'boys' rather than martial artists. They don't have the training or understanding Ranma does, or Ryouga, Cologne or Happosai. I'm going out on a limb here, but I suspect martial artists have better understanding because they didn't take the shortcut tenki provides. They've learned it all the hard way, paid their dues. They didn't get a magical transformation stick and a powerup mode. The martial artists have the breadth of knowledge to counter things, while the typical magical sort doesn't.
For someone judgemental on the fic, I certainly have way too many opinions :P
Hmmm, it's reasonable, but even for Ranma the 'understanding' comes off as far too much Super Estoric Knowledge learning that makes it hard to buy the whole Nerima crew and especially normal competent martial artists knowing or comprehending. It's one thing to see Ranma, maybe Ryoga going 'oh, I heard this from a monk somewhere in the alps', but I'd raise an eyebrow at Akane or Ukyou or most of the non-mystic origin cast being even remotely aware of the details.
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 09:48:14 PM
For someone judgemental on the fic, I certainly have way too many opinions :P
Hmmm, it's reasonable, but even for Ranma the 'understanding' comes off as far too much Super Estoric Knowledge learning that makes it hard to buy the whole Nerima crew and especially normal competent martial artists knowing or comprehending. It's one thing to see Ranma, maybe Ryoga going 'oh, I heard this from a monk somewhere in the alps', but I'd raise an eyebrow at Akane or Ukyou or most of the non-mystic origin cast being even remotely aware of the details.
Akane, no way. I could see Ukyou or Shampoo as a bit of a stretch. The others live and breathe martial arts, showing often insane capacity for them compared to other pursuits. Ryouga, Taro, Herb, Saffron? All of them I could see keeping up with this. This stuff isn't so obscure to a martial art focused person, remember.
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 06:16:50 PM
Mmm, oddly the background depth annoys the crap out of me, probably more than It's Just Magic. Seeing a longish essay that is summarized in Girls are prettier, pretty equals power, therefore Magical girls seems less acceptable then just going Evil Army of Magical Girls. Still reading, but I probably shouldn't since I'm both reading and being Judgemental of it.
I have to trust you on that, because I didn't actually read that essay. And I won't, until the story is finished.
My objection with the Chi=magic equivalence is that it makes about as much sense as organic chemistry = magic. Chi = magic is usually just a lazy and ignorant writer who is too busy being lazy to relieve his ignorance. Employing some thought into how the various powers make a system, and using that system means he's not that: he's worldbuilding.
Granted, one shouldn't need an appendix to be able to read the story, and that's why I'm avoiding reading the essay - because I'd like to see how well the story works on its own first.
Quote
The fights are pretty cool, but at the same time, Ranma seems dumb
He is a character from Ranma 1/2. (And akane is there, he's stupid-heroic, etc, etc. But that really just boils down to the previous point).
Quote
The enemy has to hold onto the idiot ball hard to allows a victory.
They are magical girls. QED.
Just finished reading 1-5. Verdict: eh. I've read better "Ranma is now a magical girl" stories. I've written better "Ranma is now a magical girl" stories. Heck, even Kenko's Paragon was better than this.
I am not taking Haigeki as "Ranma is a magical girl" fic. Paragon was a straight up "Ranma is a magical girl" story, with the pre-fight speech, the talking animal companion, boyfriend-related plots, etc. If you were looking at Haigeki by that yardstick, it won't measure up, because it has never tried to do so; it's been clear from chapter 1 that Haigeki is not the same sort of story as Paragon.
With the plot type and twists, the magical system, etc, I think this is closer to wuxia-style magical girl (although I've been trying to fill out some scene stubs in my Ranma-wuxia fic lately, so I might be biased atm). Another take is that it is channeling Nietzsche, except replace the word 'monster' with 'magical girl.'
My takeaway is that this is certainly a fic which needs to be looked at within its limitations to be appreciated. For instance: there is no significant character interaction in it. Whenever Ranma talks for an extended amount of time with another character, they are either (a) fighting, (b) negotiating, or (c) swapping exposition. That's pretty much all there is on the character front. The primary point seems to be either the martial-arts/magic/spiritual nerdery or more specifically the concept of magical-girl-transformation-as-self-administered-mind-rape.
(Incidentally, this makes me skeptical that there's going to be a terrible Akane scene which rehashes the whole tsundere thing for the zillionth time. Fleshing out the interactions between characters -- tritely or otherwise -- is just not the focus here, {EDIT} so probably Akane won't be onscreen for that long or they'll... I don't know, just fight or swap exposition or something. I do feel like echoing the guess above that there's going to be more "Ranma undergoes another terrible procedure in the dungeon and becomes even more girly" stuff, and the other stuff in the fic is just setup for demonstrating the entirety of the process. It reads a bit like one would imagine reading an interesting autopsy report. It's interesting... as long as you read it as an autopsy report.)
...I was pondering reading this right up until that analysis. Thanks for the warning. o_O
... and now I have to spend a bit of time pondering whether that analysis of mine was fair. Probably yes. The mind rape angle is quite deliberate and is overtly played for horror. I'm going to stand by my assertion that it reads as an extremely detailed description of the negative side effects of being forced to warp your own soul into that of a pretty magical girl candy princess. (Pros: save Akane and Ukyo from experiencing the same fate; become a magical girl. Cons: danger of permanently overwriting your own immortal soul, or -- worse -- being captured and having Bad Nasty People overwrite your soul for you.) I don't know. I still found it interesting, but strictly in the autopsy-report sense. I'll leave it to people who see its merits as a story to defend it if they want.
I like Ranma as Ranma. Or even an RSE.
Don't think I'd enjoy this angle.
A word of praise occurs: prior to the magical-girly-girl stuff, the author has a pretty interesting Ranma-shaped-entity going. Admittedly different from regular Ranma (see Drac's complaint above) since he's much more knowledgeable, a bit more calculating, and in general he comes across as far more sly and intelligent.
I could imagine enjoying the heck out of a fic where, instead of being repeatedly personality-warped into a girl, the same Ranma-shaped entity was instead some kind of martial arts expert being brought in to give expertise on some forensics investigation in a murder mystery or something. (And then all hell breaks loose as per standard procedure in a lot of good fanfiction.)
Because I liked the part where the character analyzed his first fight with the magical girls, correlated it to the tight-lipped exposition from Tuxedo Mask, and then deduced the basic mechanism of the magical girl transformation.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on December 10, 2011, 01:07:13 PM
My takeaway is that this is certainly a fic which needs to be looked at within its limitations to be appreciated. For instance: there is no significant character interaction in it. Whenever Ranma talks for an extended amount of time with another character, they are either (a) fighting, (b) negotiating, or (c) swapping exposition. That's pretty much all there is on the character front. The primary point seems to be either the martial-arts/magic/spiritual nerdery or more specifically the concept of magical-girl-transformation-as-self-administered-mind-rape.
(Incidentally, this makes me skeptical that there's going to be a terrible Akane scene which rehashes the whole tsundere thing for the zillionth time. Fleshing out the interactions between characters -- tritely or otherwise -- is just not the focus here, {EDIT} so probably Akane won't be onscreen for that long or they'll... I don't know, just fight or swap exposition or something. I do feel like echoing the guess above that there's going to be more "Ranma undergoes another terrible procedure in the dungeon and becomes even more girly" stuff, and the other stuff in the fic is just setup for demonstrating the entirety of the process. It reads a bit like one would imagine reading an interesting autopsy report. It's interesting... as long as you read it as an autopsy report.)
Pretty much.
I was really hoping there'd be a more ambitious counter then: I must erase myself, followed by "I have erased a good chunk of myself, and I still cannot even compete. Now they have captured me and will totally try and erase the shit out of me."
Quote from: Anastasia on December 09, 2011, 09:53:13 PM
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 09:48:14 PM
For someone judgemental on the fic, I certainly have way too many opinions :P
Hmmm, it's reasonable, but even for Ranma the 'understanding' comes off as far too much Super Estoric Knowledge learning that makes it hard to buy the whole Nerima crew and especially normal competent martial artists knowing or comprehending. It's one thing to see Ranma, maybe Ryoga going 'oh, I heard this from a monk somewhere in the alps', but I'd raise an eyebrow at Akane or Ukyou or most of the non-mystic origin cast being even remotely aware of the details.
Akane, no way. I could see Ukyou or Shampoo as a bit of a stretch. The others live and breathe martial arts, showing often insane capacity for them compared to other pursuits. Ryouga, Taro, Herb, Saffron? All of them I could see keeping up with this. This stuff isn't so obscure to a martial art focused person, remember.
It's not that I can't buy a narrative that says "Hey, Ryoga, Taro, Ranma, Herb..Estoric Martial Arts Expertise". Or Saffron (Older as Dirt) having heard of it. But, it really is. If it wasn't obscure, there would be more than a magical hidden away enclave of folks doing it. Basically, it's not a stretch to buy one of them having heard of it...
But really, Ryoga, Taro, Saffron and most the Ranma cast aren't naturally analytic. They're very martial and good at picking up techniques. Other than Ranma, almost none of them are reported to have much formal training at all or what formal training is mentioned is stuff that would be pretty mundane. It's easy to buy that they do (they're great martial artists), but still: Spirituality education would be something I'd blink at coming from more than one of the cast in the same fic without more AUness going on.
I should go DM my game instead of bantering here. Bad me.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on December 10, 2011, 02:47:15 PM
I could imagine enjoying the heck out of a fic where, instead of being repeatedly personality-warped into a girl, the same Ranma-shaped entity was instead some kind of martial arts expert being brought in to give expertise on some forensics investigation in a murder mystery or something. (And then all hell breaks loose as per standard procedure in a lot of good fanfiction.)
Mmmm, CSI:Nerima.
Quote from: Jon on December 10, 2011, 05:20:53 PMMmmm, CSI:Nerima.
Outlined to chapter 5. I'm way behind. -_-
The chapters are analytical, but I think this is a condition of writing in the first person, rather than a deliberate characterization. Ranma in canon is not naturally analytical, but first person perspective is predominated by self-thought.
Maybe that just means that the writer shouldn't have written it in the first person perspective, but I think that's also an unfair generalization of the viewpoint in general. IMO, I think the real problem is that it's difficult to reconcile keeping the viewer accurately updated with the action and the fact that Ranma is oblivious-for-comedic-reasons. Of course, that is hard to do, but that's the peril of writing in the first person perspective in the first place.
Oblivious for comedic reasons?
Uh, that story is absolutely totally not a comedy, nor is Ranma in it a comedically oblivious character. Am I missing something?
I assume the above comment refers to the idea that Ranma is oblivious-for-comedic-reasons in canon. Which means that a disadvantage of first-person Ranma narration is that anyone doing it has to either content themselves with important plot elements never being mentioned, or contradict this trait and make Ranma much more perceptive than he is in canon. The author of the Haigeki fic is clearly going for the latter route.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on December 10, 2011, 01:07:13 PM
I do feel like echoing the guess above that there's going to be more "Ranma undergoes another terrible procedure in the dungeon and becomes even more girly" stuff,
This is disturbingly common among some parts of the fandom and it makes me sad. I like a fic where Ranma decides to explore his feminine side (see Girl Days or Clothes Make The, for instance), but when you actually remove Ranma's personality from the equation, it takes all the fun out of it. (Plus you're left with the distinct feeling you've just waded through someone's fetish without appropriate hazmat gear.)
Something like Hell is a Martial Artist or Destiny's Child is fun, where its some conscious decision, or embarassing result. Something where Brainwashing Gear is part of the equation is not.
Heck, even Magical Girl Ranko vs. Z-Fighter Ryouga is more amusing, where Ranma does some of the very self-same things in this fic in a way that's far more acceptable. Ranma there takes on this kind of magical girl training route out of sheer competitiveness with Ryouga and instead of it going down the 'complete erasure' route, it goes down the 'he has odd quirks in girl form now from forcefeeding herself too much magical girl propaganda during the training' and playing off the 'hey ridiculous magical soul powers work!' bit. And it's embarrassing and silly and Ranma is self-aware of it all being silly, but hey, it's a technique that lets him kick Ryouga's ass, so it's all good because Ranma is the Best!
Isn't there a subsection of fanfiction that's basically, "All of X's problems would be solved if they could just become the opposite gender!"?
Naturally, Ranma's a go-to for the concept, but I believe I've seen it applied other, less sensible places, too.
Quote from: Jon on December 10, 2011, 11:11:28 PM
I like a fic where Ranma decides to explore his feminine side (see Girl Days or Clothes Make The, for instance), but when you actually remove Ranma's personality from the equation, it takes all the fun out of it. (Plus you're left with the distinct feeling you've just waded through someone's fetish without appropriate hazmat gear.)
What kind of hazmat gear would ever be appropriate to protect one from the horror of, say, furries?
/me ducks, in case there are any furries in the room
I read of a psychologist who put forward a theory that male-to-female transsexuals are simply people who succumb to an 'erotic fascination with themselves as women' (i.e. that reads to me as people with a particular fetish that is considered worthy of medical consummation):
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/health/psychology/21gender.html?ei=5090&en=0c1176374e251f82&ex=1345348800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1187716213-FvzJ0+13RU6loS2uPlvN/Q
(tl:dr -- after publishing his book, the psychologist was then subjected to the academic equivalent of a stoning. Fairly or not -- you are free to have your own opinion.)
However, the sheer amount of gender bending fics/webcomics/whatever one runs into these days (some of the material, like this fic, presented in a manner which is... distinctly odd) makes me want to give some weight to that theory. (In general, this fic in particular has a variety of ironies which dissuade one from taking the transsexual cause seriously, which is probably not a good thing for anyone. I'm trying to think on how to comment on them tastefully {EDIT} since I'm starting to be pretty squicked out by implications of this fic that I hadn't seen previously!)
Aside: in order to get to that link (I forgot the name of the professor or of the book) I had to type the terms 'transsexual "erotic fascination" as women death threat' into Google. I wonder what a random person being shown my search history would think.
That theory makes a hell of a lot of sense. Shit, after reading one too many bad fanfics I'd say it strikes me as entirely probable.
Hell. Men like women. It seems easy to get that mixed up a bit and start thinking women are so beautiful and desirable that you want to be one. It really would explain some of the shit I've seen written in bad fanfics.
Okay, a bit of careful consideration later: here is an implication of 'Haigeki' which I think would make any advocate of transsexualism feel incensed by the fic if they take the time to think about it. No, it is not "gender bending is mind rape". (It's still obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that gender bending can just as easily not be mind rape; just as reading this fic should not impede people's ability to watch magical girl shows.) It's far more subtle than that.
Consider: Ranma undergoes some pretty traumatic shit in order to become a magical girl. He is in every sense of the word trapped in the wrong gender. However, ending up that way is his only chance to save Akane and Ukyo, which makes it worthwhile. And in order not to go into hysterics (literal or metaphorical) while reading the fic, we need to take the premise that there can be reasons that make the sort of experience Ranma goes through worthwhile, and assume it at least for the duration of our reading.
Which premise leads us to consider the transsexual question. Considering that the act of not having your gender modified is far less invasive and frightening than deliberately tearing your soul apart with haigeki nonsense... it becomes likely that there can be all sorts of reasons (shock, horror) not to bother with gender reassignment, reasons that would make even being trapped in the role of playing the 'wrong' gender... also worthwhile? Consider what one potentially loses in terms of disruption to one's family, social circle, etc., etc. -- The answer could easily go either way, depending on what you value in life.
Which, as I understand it, goes against most modern transsexual advocacy. (Can anyone correct me on this?)
At this point my train of thought tends to plunge right off the edge of anything even remotely resembling political correctness, so I'll stop here. Safe conclusion: in indulging an evident male-to-female fetish, the author has indirectly stomped on the face of transsexualism, and the irony is so palpable that it makes me want to curl up into a ball and laugh/cry about the sheer ridiculosity of this world we live in. Others may disagree.
Quote from: Brian on December 10, 2011, 11:30:46 PM
Isn't there a subsection of fanfiction that's basically, "All of X's problems would be solved if they could just become the opposite gender!"?
Naturally, Ranma's a go-to for the concept, but I believe I've seen it applied other, less sensible places, too.
Well, absolutely. There's a fandom around it that largely doesn't care what source they're writing about it in. Furries are the same as Arakawa points out, but find less traction. Slash writers. Yuri writers. You could say: There is a subsection of all fanfiction where character X will be happier if they appeal to my fetish" There's also a subsection of fanfiction that goes "X would be better, if this fantasy occurred in it." Where that could be intelligent dismissive protagonist, victorious villian, Superpowered Protagonist, Helpful Community, Wise Mentor, etc etc. With an audience base that largely doesn't care the source for the story to take place in.
I dunno where I was going with that answer, but yes, even the 'Erase character's mentality' is one of them, which we are potentially seeing here. An important distinction though is that while this is sometimes the author's goal, it is far more often a reflection of their audience than necessarily their own goals. Though it can be.
*reads article*
Well, it does, but at the same time, it is foolhardy to really sort of declare human psychology in such broad strokes. Still, pity for the professor. Harrassment campaigns suck and we largely allow such things to go unpunished. Being deceitful and trying to destroy someone really should have a negative response.
Arakawa:
I suspect if you are declaring the term transexual, are are also thinking about it more deeply than a lot of authors who write girl ranma fics are doing. That could be their reason, certainly, but it bespeaks an amount of awareness of the side implications that most don't have. A rather large percentage of total fanfiction writers are between the ages of 10 and 20, in my opinion. I don't got statistics to back that claim, but virtually everyone on this site started pre-20s as far as consumption and many/most wrote something within their first year or two of consuming. A lot of them simply don't have the education to be aware of the wider implications.
The same thing often goes for many of the manga and anime that get produced. There the creator base is often in their 20s-30s, and have been working on delivering something that would break through for 4-5 years. While there may be a depth of study on the things that go in, there's not necessarily a depth of understanding that goes with it.
Basically saying, The stories that go out to make an allegory as part of their purpose and understand how they are communicating it are the exceptional and rare case in amateur writing (Which virtually all fanfiction and most free original fiction is). Folks who haven't written their first million words or so are just statistically unlikely to be doing much more than telling the story they want to tell or more commonly creating a vessel/framework for delivering some scenes they want to write. Many people read things into people's work that isn't there as usually when a young author wants you to understand a moral or psychlogical point, it is done with a sledgehammer.
*takes off his edumacation cap and goes back to fiddling with games on his laptop*
Oh, slow typer misses more.
By the way, you brush against the side of one of the problems the Essay and the theory of power gives. Frankly, going "Woman -> Creates Better. and hey Beauty and Spirtuality are linked up, and women are pretty and ..." </Completely unfair compression of essay>. It IS clearly thinking about it instead of simply writing it because it felt reasonable for the story, and that's not something being read into the author's voice, which basically delivers in context a "Women can become so beautiful they just win, men have no hope." as a narrative underpinning (Something more obnoxious than the early 'boys versus girls', which is just schoolyard antics given serious violent behavior).
Mmm, tired of being serious *wanders off in truth~*
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on December 10, 2011, 08:45:07 PM
I assume the above comment refers to the idea that Ranma is oblivious-for-comedic-reasons in canon. Which means that a disadvantage of first-person Ranma narration is that anyone doing it has to either content themselves with important plot elements never being mentioned, or contradict this trait and make Ranma much more perceptive than he is in canon. The author of the Haigeki fic is clearly going for the latter route.
Yes, exactly this.
Well, I guess there's also the third route of letting another character figure all of it out, if the writer doesn't mind the other character being the main protagonist. e.g, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and the protagonist is Sherlock Holmes, even if the first person narrator is Watson.
Quote
"embrace the Onna" discussion
I guess I'm reading it in the opposite fashion of you all. I don't see this as a OnnaRanma fic at all - I've read plenty of those fics, and I'm pretty bored of them.
I saw the last chapters of Haigeki as a fic about a deliberate sacrifice for power. In Ranma's case, his sacrifice is a conversion to being a magical girl. He values his manhood, hence, for story purposes, that was an appropriate sacrifice, but it's the sacrifice of value, not the fact that he's now a girl, that's important. If his enemy was giant talking cats, and he drove himself permanently partially insane to access the Nekoken to fight them, it'd be the same thing.
In fact, if Haigeki does turn into another "embrace aqua-transexualism" fic, I'll probably stop reading it because I've read enough stories where Ranma deals with people trying to hook her up with boyfriends, extended shopping scenes, etc. Those stories were kind of interesting back in 2000, but I find it a stale concept by this point.
Quote from: Dracos on December 11, 2011, 12:17:31 AM
Well, absolutely. There's a fandom around it that largely doesn't care what source they're writing about it in. Furries are the same as Arakawa points out, but find less traction. Slash writers. Yuri writers. You could say: There is a subsection of all fanfiction where character X will be happier if they appeal to my fetish" There's also a subsection of fanfiction that goes "X would be better, if this fantasy occurred in it." Where that could be intelligent dismissive protagonist, victorious villian, Superpowered Protagonist, Helpful Community, Wise Mentor, etc etc. With an audience base that largely doesn't care the source for the story to take place in.
My personal version of Sturgeon's Law is basically "90% of all fanfiction is written to satisfy a perversion that I don't happen to share with the author". So far, especially if I expand that definition to include perversions of the
mind (hello there, Haruhi "crack" writers!) as opposed to just the libido, it seems quite accurate.
Quote from: Dracos on December 11, 2011, 12:17:31 AM
I suspect if you are declaring the term transexual, are are also thinking about it more deeply than a lot of authors who write girl ranma fics are doing. That could be their reason, certainly, but it bespeaks an amount of awareness of the side implications that most don't have. A rather large percentage of total fanfiction writers are between the ages of 10 and 20, in my opinion. I don't got statistics to back that claim, but virtually everyone on this site started pre-20s as far as consumption and many/most wrote something within their first year or two of consuming. A lot of them simply don't have the education to be aware of the wider implications.
Well, a key point of the thinking behind political correctness is that you can create hurtful implications
even if you never intended to. I'm not clear on the author's intent, to what extent they're interested in exploring the 'turning into a girl angle'. Though logically they must be fairly interested to write about it in such detail.
*shakes head*
I don't know, too many questions for my puny brain.
Meh. should call it a night.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on December 11, 2011, 01:51:34 AMMy personal version of Sturgeon's Law is basically "90% of all fanfiction is written to satisfy a perversion that I don't happen to share with the author". So far, especially if I expand that definition to include perversions of the mind (hello there, Haruhi "crack" writers!) as opposed to just the libido, it seems quite accurate.
*hurk*
Okay, yeah. We need a real category name for that subgenre.
/me wanders off to tvtropes to ask the Hive Mind for guidance. Wish me luck!
Edit: Nope. Bad idea. I'm too biased to be behind this effort. :(
I think it's important to note that transsexualism is different from 'having a fetish about yourself or others changing sex'. (I've sometimes heard the latter called autogynephilia, but I think the term is not well defined.) Here's a hint: if you think the treatment of transsexualism you're seeing could plausibly end up in 4chan's /d/, it's almost certainly the fetish version.
There are in almost any choice tradeoffs to be made. The hallmark of a fetish-based TG fic is one where the choice is entirely positive for the author avatar protagonist, if it's not out of his hands completely. (As an example of the other sort, consider "Clothes Make The...", where it's obvious the authors have strong interest in transsexual topics, but it's not obviously done for wank material.)
If you care about minor spoilers for Battlestar Galactica, stop reading now.
Personally, I identify as transhuman in the same way someone might identify as transsexual. John Cavil, a humanoid cylon in the re-imagined BSG series, has a scene (http://disquiet.com/2009/02/21/quote-of-the-week-stockwells-supernova/) where he complains about the limitations of human biology. Of course, "Transhuman" is normally used in the meaning of "becoming posthuman", which is not yet true for me; but I want it to be true and I am making (small) steps towards it someday being a reality. As a part of this interest, I like reading stories which explore or showcase the different ranges of human experience. (The Count of Monte Cristo is a classic here.) Some of the fics the TG fandom produces have bearing on my interest, but man, does Sturgeon's Law ever apply.
Quote from: Brian on December 11, 2011, 02:01:27 AM
We need a real category name for that subgenre.
I've been pondering this for a couple of days and just now a thought occurred. How about:
lol ficAt least for me it invokes several connotations that are directly applicable to the phenomenon, including intentionally bad language, low-brow humor, copycats (pun intended) / meme propagation, stereotyping (written equivalent of image macros), juvenile group behavior and non-seriousness (just for the lols, or lulz).
Besides that just by hearing the term it's possible to get a pretty good idea of what kind of fics are in question, the choice should even be acceptable to those persons who actually write that stuff, as they may see it predominantly as a positive label ('for laughs').
I think I may be hijacking the thread a bit, but that's an excellent distinction -- and a name that's not automaticallt insulting. Off to YKTTW now. :D
So, spamfics, except more so?
You should read one or two and make your own judgement.
Well, what would differentiate them?
Spamfics are short fics delivering a simple joke or idea, potentially irrelevant to the characters (Kasumi Goes Psycho Murderer). Lolfics are generally not so focused, though the line would blur at the edge of spamfics where the characters and setting descend into mere caricature while tropes or particularly juvenile humor is taking center stage in short spammish scenes. Is what stands them out the audacity and extent? That setting, characters, humor type, style, and other have been replaced, but when you ask yourself what replaces it, there's literally a babbling 12 year old?
Don't know why you think that comment would be bad for tvtropes-- It's pretty critical if we want to prove a distinction.
However, tvtropes doesn't have a trope acknowledging the spamfic in the first place, so this is the class, not a sub-class distinction. If it DID, my argument would be, "Spamfics tend to stand alone -- the authors of these tend to post multiple of them as a single 'chapter', or at the very least, dozens of unrelated fics in a single volume as individual chapters.
Also, I believe we have successfully hijacked what was originally a hijack thread in the first place.
I'm So Meta Even This Acronym
Soo, the Haigeki update. Chapter 6.
I think it mostly involves this thing called 'agony'.
From the other thread: Yeah no, think I'm passing on this fic now. I have a relatively high tolerance for unpleasant events in a fic, but a chapter of Ranma getting tortured is so far away from what I liked in this story that I want no part of it. I've read fics that do much worse to Ranma (Her War) and liked them, but this one really annoys the piss out of me. No, this fic really didn't need a captured and tortured interlude, thanks.
Kind of a bummer, really. I'd be more interested in the notion of a villain who wants to subject Earth to a planetary scale magical girl transformation, if it wasn't preceded by half a chapter of Ranma doing time in a Skinner box. When the writer lingers a bit too long on the details of the Skinner Box, you get the feeling that the point of the fic is just to watch Ranma suffer and gradually turn into a Real Girl.
e.g. let's say Ranma eventually defeats the Pretty Princess Institute, but is stuck as a magical girl afterwards. Feh.
But we've been over this, in large part. I'm not as annoyed at the agony/bliss stuff as you'd expect, since it's mostly the fic proceeding to go in the direction we predicted it was going to go. But that really is the problem. Too much of the fic has become predictable (next chapter is just going to be Ranma meets Skinner Box round two, right?), and "it's so predictable I can invent a more surprising way for it to go" is probably a good reason to drop it in my book. -_-
Well, there goes any interest in reading this chapter.
I gotta agree, torturing the protagonist is very rarely ever a sign that good stuff will come later. Her War works because its from the perspective "I murdered EVERYBODY involved and saved the day, even though I went through a long horrible journey to do it". I nearly stopped Time Braid when it went that route (and did ignore it until the scenes finished) because ending on a 'They are being tortured, the bad guys are winning' is not a cliff hanger so much as a Downer. Ky Lewin's Naruto fic (Damn horrible thing) also went from Good to bad to horrible (Worst single scene I've read in naruto fanfiction).
I'd almost say it practically doesn't work from a forward facing story.
Just got around to reading this now.
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on February 01, 2012, 09:19:42 PM
...you get the feeling that the point of the fic is just to watch Ranma suffer and gradually turn into a Real Girl.
I will note that this fic was advertised by Ozzallos, who over the last few years, seems to be fairly focused on turning men into women. So I am not overly surprised by this, even if I am disappointed.
I do note that two things have become clear(er) in hindsight.
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 06:16:50 PM
It seems right now the power levels are: Normal Person > Martial Artist > Nerima Tier > Ranma Tier > Weakest Magical Girls > (The Good Guys) > Advanced Magical Girls > Syaoran > (Ranma Current) > Hecate/Pluto > Strong Magical Girls > The Director/Mary Sue (Note: Hecate/pluto might be on the other side of strong magical girls. Can't tell, they can Walk Through Timestop).
Turns out the main villain really is a Mary Sue. Note that her defense is cited as being magically out of the reach of any attack. So you would need an "attack with infinite reach" -- i.e. a <insert Mary-Sue-destroying Macguffin> -- to hit her.
Quote from: Dracos on December 09, 2011, 06:16:50 PM
And I've lost track again really on what all these magical girls are for. They're making them, to experiment on the process of making them?
Brainwashed Army of Magical Girls! Which will -- assuming everything goes as planned for the next century -- eventually re-terraform the Earth in a giant tenki in order to... um, here we lose track again. Save the whales, or something?
Presumably the giant tenki would turn 1% of the human population into magical girls/boys and kill the other 99%. There's something about how they wanted to do this thousands of years ago in order for the Earth to function as a power source and stimulate the Silver Millennium economy, but the Silver Millennium economy doesn't exist anymore, so that can't possibly be the reason...
Okay, it's a gratuitous villain with a death ray. Powered by brainwashed magical girls.
...really? So glad I passed on reading this. o_o
Quote from: Arakawa Seijio on February 05, 2012, 10:51:38 AM
Turns out the main villain really is a Mary Sue. Note that her defense is cited as being magically out of the reach of any attack. So you would need an "attack with infinite reach" -- i.e. a <insert Mary-Sue-destroying Macguffin> -- to hit her.
Since we met Garm immediately before we meet the Director, and Garm expressly mentions Fenrir, I presume he'll be used in the same fashion as Fenrir against the Director. Which, given the timing, feels right.
I am not up to date with tropes-classification (actually, I know next to nothing about it). Does that make her a Mary Sue? It seems like a fairly conventional high-powered villain setup-with-fated-flaw to me. And the writer explicitly mentions Fenrir - it's not as if he's even trying to hide this.
Quote
Brainwashed Army of Magical Girls! Which will -- assuming everything goes as planned for the next century -- eventually re-terraform the Earth in a giant tenki in order to... um, here we lose track again. Save the whales, or something?
Save humanity from itself by destroying it. From a veteran of wars that ended millennia ago. i.e, paraphrasing the justification of Ben Tre - I don't think it was supposed to make rational sense from a normal perspective, given the context of the original quote before it was paraphrased by the Director.
I don't have a problem with the second half, other than it seems fairly conventional "introduce the final boss, obligatory reveal of evil plans". I do think the Skinner Box part was overly long, and probably should have been a third of what it is. The flip side of that is that flashbacks and scene skips aren't something that fits the first-person subjective perspective well (Which is not to say that authors don't cheat. In the Garrett files, a first-person hard-boiled detective in a fantasy setting, he gets knocked out a lot.). I did say that straight-up first person is hard to do for non-short story if you're going to stay true to it, and I think that's pretty clear in this chapter.
If I recall correctly when this fic was released, the writer had finished five chapters, and had the rest of the plot. He'd also declared his intention to release one chapter every two months. This is chapter six, and I'd be willing to make a small bet that he ran into the limitations of his chosen format at this point. One way that I've seen to get around this was to have Ranma visiting a psychologist, and being asked to narrate the past - that's still changing the perspective, but it gives you more options as to when to skip scenes, or reserve them for a sudden dramatic revelation at the end.
Anyway, I think it's readable if you start reading until you get annoyed at the torture, then skim it until you get to the part with Ranma lighting his clothes on fire, then go read it again. It's not a great chapter, but other than the extended torture (which is bad), I don't see anything else that is really intrinsically bad about it other than blandness.
And if you don't even want to skim that much, here's a summary:
Pain/pleasure, for everything.
Michiko gives Ranma a pair of DBZ-scanner glasses as a gift.
Ranma discovers that everyone has gone through conditioning, which leaves them broken. He's the latest experiment.
Ranma learns quadratic equations and dress protocol.
Update ho!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/7/Haigeki
May or may not read it. If I do I'll post thoughts later.
No spoiler tag, since I figure anyone who's wanted to read the chapter by this point already has.
Summary: The last chapter plus this chapter is unnecessary overkill.
Details: This chapter is invasion into the mindscape for "adjustment". Maybe it's just my personal distaste for this sort of representation (1), but if they can "adjust" facets of personalities by breaking into the mind itself, why the hell is the skinner box chapter necessary? I bet if we asked the writer, the answer would be because "the nature of mechanic X requires Y before Z and therefore..." but from a literary standpoint, the counterargument is to change the mechanics. Having two different mental-torture chapters is excessive, unless either the writer likes writing about torture or is writing some yet another "Ranma's transsexual destiny" fic (2) and wanted to cut off the mental willpower escape routes.
It's too bad. I was excited to read a gritty Ranma-adventure story, but suddenly realize that its really a gritty Ozzallos story, now with extra torture.
(1) "VR hacking" and "mindscape adventures" aren't inherently the most retarded concepts I've ever read, but scenes with them usually end up feeling that way because most writers are trying to rewrite the last scene of Snow Crash without actually laying out the the contextual groundwork of the Snow Crash finale in the first place.
(2) i.e those Ranma fics where every chapter is Deux ex Machina where Ranma keeps getting mentally bludgeoned into acting like a girl and enjoying it until he surrenders into femininity. "Ranma, you must go shopping and get a manicure." "Why am I enjoying this? Noooo!"
I skimmed the chapter. I have to agree with Jason above, and am more annoyed for another reason. Really, the entire becoming a magical girl think was more than enough motivation to turn Ranma girlier, if that's your goal. These last two chapters have felt entirely excessive and unneeded overkill.
Maybe the author is trolling?
I doubt it, based on the raw amount of effort and skill applied. If it is a troll, it's a dedicated one.
Well, there are different classes of troll, though. I meant, "Maybe he got annoyed at the feedback, and made it worse as a Take That!?"
I'd lean towards no. In his profile he mentions how he's several chapters ahead and has them in beta. He releases once every two months to keep a decent pace while making steady progress.
I see what you're getting at, but it doesn't really match the author's MO.
Hanlon's razor, I guess.
The weird thing is that other story (Seven Village Stomp) is a Ranma/Naruto xover was explicitly branch off pre-Jusenkyo, and was supposed to be Ranma and Genma wandering tooling around the Naruto-verse being Ranma and Genma. So, it doesn't seem as if the writer is a OMGMAGICGIRLHOODYAYS writer. The writer's MO does seem to be action/adventure.
What the hell happened?
I'm guessing her underestimated how dark things were going to skew, perhaps? Sometimes you misjudge what your audience will accept.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/8/Haigeki
Update. I'm not following this story anymore, but I figure it's worth posting here.
Also the new FFnet design blows.
In the interests of posting it anyway.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/9/Haigeki
No, I'm not going to ECB this.
Dammit Drac!
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/13/Haigeki
So this finished in case anyone still cares. I reread parts of this and figured out why it flops so terribly. So bear with me as I work through this. I'm going to be comparing it to Her War, another fic that uses extremely dark themes.
I've read both Haigeki and Her War. Both fanfics involve disturbing, dark and downright unpleasant things happening to Ranma during the course of the story. Yet I like Her War while I consider Haigeki misformed trash. Why's that? It's all about how the story deals with and frames the darkness. Her War does a masterful job at balancing the darkness to bolster the story while Haigeki's darkness derails an entertaining yarn.
It's all about how the story integrates the dark elements. With Her War, you have a narrative frame that quickly asserts that Ranma survives her torment and comes out far greater to it. Mythical even, like a character from an old Chinese epic. You meet post-story Ranma fairly soon and he serves as a hook. How does Ranma survive the horrible things that are happening to him? It defines the miserable events into a direct struggle that Ranma will overcome, so you want to see how. The story's structure supports the disturbing events and uses them to make a greater whole.
Conversely, Haigeki sets Ranma up as a hero from the beginning. It builds a story of fighting against the odds and overcoming them. This is typical Ranma 1/2 stuff for Ranma, right? This supports the story not going dark. By relying on this established pattern, you're priming the audience for a story that sticks to Ranma 1/2's basic themes and storytelling. This means the frame does not support long torture interludes mixed with breaking down Ranma's psyche.
Simply put, the structure of Her War supports a darkfic. Haigeki's structure supports a more traditional Ranma 1/2 story. It violates the reader's expectations and causes the foundation of interest the story's build up to collapse under the weight of bad things happening. It's only natural that this causes the reader to be drawn out of the story with cries of bullshit. Haigeki doesn't craft a story that can adequately support what happens to Ranma. That's all there is to it.
I think Haigeki could have worked with a reworked premise. The author's talented and clearly has a knack at worldbuilding. The problem is there's a subtle but critical mistake made in the story structure that ruins the entire effort. It's too bad. I'd have greatly enjoyed a story that kept the style and tone of the pre-capture chapters up and avoided being derailed.
QuoteAnother take is that it is channeling Nietzsche, except replace the word 'monster' with 'magical girl.'
Jason Miao nailed this. The title of the last chapter all but says it.
What you say is correct, but there's something more simplistic being missed.
I'll answer on a slightly more simplistic angle really.
In Her War, the terrible monsters who use brainwashing and torture largely fail. It still is atrocious and generally drives people off. Sure, there are terrible events that render a The Protagonist Is Changed Forever, but usually the torturer dies terribly or is framed as a horrible challenge that the hero is overcoming.
In Time Braid and Haigeki, they don't fail. They succeed with horrifying consequences and the story continues from there. Not only that is for both (assuming in Haigeki's case since I stopped reading), the ability for the hero to resist is largely a token affair as it moves on to how life is life now that the villain has succeeded. Haigeki does worse here by drawing out how the villain succeeds, when that's both the least pleasant and most frustrating part.
In Time Braid, the follow up to these scenes is the Heroine aggressively trying to reverse the victory by the villain. The brainwashing, torture, etc is something that's again posed as a challenge to be overcome.
In Haigeiki, glancing at the last chapter, it is not overcome. Sure the villain is killed, but the hero's life is destroyed and something else takes its place. This is the measure that's taken at each point early on too. There's no recovery, just continuing on fighting the villain and taking their place in being a horrible monster.
Because at least glancing at the end there's no question that Ranma isn't a horrible monster at the end, and also generally a screwed up non-hero at the end of most of the brainwash sections too. A significant difference from either Her War or Time Braid.
Good points, Drac. That ties in nicely to the premise of how the fics support or fail to support what they're doing.
What strikes me with Haigeki is how unneeded the darkest elements are. The author had more than enough grist to make Ranma girly based on the tenki and shuken mechanics he established. Sharp writing could even place her in charge of the PPI when the smoke clears.
I keep chewing on this fic since the writer's so good and it had so much potential. It still enjoy reading the first few chapters and wondering about what could have been.
"Darker and edgier is EZ-mode cool."
-Hipster Brian (like, three years ago)
And probably people before me, too. Some people want to wallow in grimdark and angst. Most people don't.
Also, having not read the lead in, but having glanced at the last chapter for my write back:
What the fuck is wrong where it's having Ranma who's somehow overcome such super powered reality altering characters and potentially a thousand year lifespan getting pushed around by political leaders of the day? "Oh no, you have to arrest all these girls or we'll shut you down!" Seriously? That seems remarkably stupid.
I admit some curiousity to what bullshit let Ranma ever have a chance, but also...not enough to subject myself to more of that.
Quote from: Dracos on June 05, 2013, 08:23:15 PM
Also, having not read the lead in, but having glanced at the last chapter for my write back:
What the fuck is wrong where it's having Ranma who's somehow overcome such super powered reality altering characters and potentially a thousand year lifespan getting pushed around by political leaders of the day? "Oh no, you have to arrest all these girls or we'll shut you down!" Seriously? That seems remarkably stupid.
Also not having read the fic, end or otherwise, after I'd said I'd stop those months ago...
This sort of setup works if the political opponent holds something valued as hostage. People the protagonist loves, some obligation the protagonist has which is under the politician's direct control, some resource that can only be granted by the politician, etc.
Of course, that usually makes for a good obstacle in the middle of a fic, rather than an appropriate end. Ending on that note? I guess it could work if you're clearly planning a sequel or you're writing under a "The more things change" theme. I'd think that it'd make for a fairly crappy ending otherwise, so I'm probably glad I didn't continue reading this fic.