Okay. I'm targeting this fic:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8374549/1/Haruhi-Suzumiya-SOS-Brigades-Greastest-Actor
It's 10k words total. If no one else wants to join, I'll just be doing a straight-up scathing review, but if anyone else is willing to help out with this effort, it's appreciated. We'll probably use #kitago for it, since it's a fanfic, and would disrupt #sr something fierce. I'll probably end up starting either tomorrow or Saturday; in any case, I will be wading through the entire thing. My goals are not just to lambaste the author, but also point out for other authors things to avoid, or how they are done badly.
I don't think it needs to be said, but this fic is really bad. Enough that I want to fire up the ECB for it again. Let's see if we can make this happen, or if I'll end up just being a jerk on my own (as per usual ;).
Soulriders, roll out!
/me will do it, because just on the strength of the first sentence alone this fic totally deserves it.
Yeah, I can be a jerk about fanfiction, alone or with others :-/ Not exactly one of my most prized talents...
We'll see if I'm around at the indicated time...
EDIT: first sentence? Pff... take a look at the fic description. 'Major Kyon beatings'...
I scanned the fic, and I have to say it is pretty damn bad (not that I'm one to talk.)
I'd join in this crusade if I wasn't so wretched at writing scathing reviews. So, I simply wish the best of luck to you all.
For some reason I'm less contemptuous of people who bash characters or write them OOC than I am of people who just can't string a single sentence together. Probably something along the lines of I've seen a few fics which do push characters OOC into more antagonistic territory, and some of them are even good. It can be a legitimate creative decision.
Of course, from what I've heard the treatment of Kyon in this fic can't see "legitimate creative decision" with the Hubble Space Telescope, so I don't think that'll be a major contributing factor to my overall opinion of the fic. >_>
Okay, we'll be starting today at 5:00 PM PST in #ecb or at Midnight in GMT.
PST? Pshaw.
7:00 PM CST. That's "Correct Standard Time" to you. :)
Damn, that's early drac time. :P
*eats all your timez*
Chapter one successful, picking up for chapter two tomorrow around 11:00 AMish PST.
I'm about 50% through editing chapter one; I've got dropbox set up so people can get to it. I've dropped a lot, since our commentary outweighed the actual fic by a pretty crazy factor -- the logs were 22 k words for chapter one. That's something when the entire fic is only 10 k words.
Too sleepy to continue editing; will try and finish this up tomorrow before chapter two.
For some reason I decided to look at the couple of paragraphs of the last chapter.
What. Just. What.
Do I even want to know? I don't do I?
So after Aleth's comments, I opened up that thing to read the first sentence out of curiosity. This turned out to be a mistake, because now I have a headache. Reading the ECB review when you're done should be entertaining.
Chapter two down. Still need to polish them, but the primary editing's been done.
Chapter three ... I need a break. My mind has to heal. Wendesday, aiming for 7:00 PM PST.
Just wanted to clarify, are you guys just commenting on this fic or rewriting it to see if anything better can be made?
You see, I somehow managed to read it through, and if it is the latter, I'd love to see the result... :)
Just commenting, in snarky and insulting tone. The result is entertaining in its own right, but more so for those who can be induced to enjoy others' discomfiture when they deserve it.
I'm pretty sure the premise of this one is irreparable. And while certainly proper writing skills would make it better, that doesn't mean any of us want to write something on this (stupid) premise.
Well, I will be writing a story inspired by this one, but that will happen later.
It will be a horror story.
Quote from: Xsen on October 02, 2012, 06:25:20 AM
Just wanted to clarify, are you guys just commenting on this fic or rewriting it to see if anything better can be made?
You see, I somehow managed to read it through, and if it is the latter, I'd love to see the result... :)
Rewriting it would be a waste of anyone here's time and talents. I mean the entire thing can be DPR'd as:
New Author Wants Haruhi.
Brainwashes her to be his soldier/lover.
Murders Kyon.
Happily Ever After. The Endz.
Is that comment log available for general folks like me then?
Quote from: Dracos on October 02, 2012, 10:36:46 PM
Rewriting it would be a waste of anyone here's time and talents. I mean the entire thing can be DPR'd as:
New Author Wants Haruhi.
Brainwashes her to be his soldier/lover.
Murders Kyon.
Happily Ever After. The Endz.
Totally! I kind of thought for a sec that rewriting something this awful could be quite a challenge, but then again it's just not worth the time wasted.
The ECB (which is kind of MST-format, lines of the original fic interspersed with commentary) will presumably be published publicly once we've gone through all the chapters and polished them up. I don't really know about that side of it, so I'll leave it to Brian.
Yes, it will be posted here since I don't have a way to e-mail the author.
Traditionally, the author is e-mailed, but that tradition is from a time when e-mail addresses weren't as hard to discern as they are these days. Also, the entire thing won't fit in ff.net's messaging system.
Will the entire thing fit in a review? (If not, of course, can just post a link to it in a review.)
No, the reviews are capped at 10k.
Links also don't survive on ff.net to defeat spammers. Which will make it very difficult.
There's about fifty thousand tricks to get around the link filtering. I think it's still worth doing.
Whew, okay, we're now at around, mm, I think 65% complete. I'll do the editing on chapter 3 tonight/tomorrow. Let me know if anyone else wants to do editing so we don't conflict--
Chapter four, we may skip/rush some sections of because they're more boring than anything else, but there are parts that are absolutely worth tearing into. Hoping to try and get to that on Friday, let's aim for 6:00 PM PST.
Ideally, we'll be able to get through the last chapter on Saturday, and then can have a few days to edit. Cannot wait to have this behind us; it's a surprising amount of work.
Massive props for everyone's who's stuck it out so far. :)
I wish I wouldn't have forgotten that one of the irc sessions was tonight *sigh*.
Oh well, looking forward to reading the lampooning.
I'm surprised a bit at how many people want this to happen. >_>;
No pressure, or anything. :p
Heh, it's all in good fun.
This is probably the closest I've come to seeing a decent length text variation of the good old MST3K lambasting. Mean spirited? Perhaps. Deserved? Definitely.
Okay, let me know if anyone wants to make further edits on chapter three. Initial edit is done.
By the way. You mentioned a dropbox. Is there a link to that? I'm guessing it's your regular one, but I can't remember the address to it. Although if you'd rather anyone who isn't editing wait until it's done then that's understandable as well.
Yeah, trying to keep that to contributors only at the moment. I'm ... not sure if anyone has the original logs? But join us on Friday, you can sufferenjoy the process with us!
I really wish I could, honestly. I was kicking myself for missing the Wednesday session because it was one night when I wasn't at work while you guys were discussing it.
I suppose those are the breaks for having a job that goes from 12:30 to 9:00PM PST. *shrugs*
In hindsight, you could have set your system to log the channel and read the backscroll. >_>;;
But have no fear! The final chapter is tomorrow! Hoping for some time between 11:00 AM and 12:00 PM PST.
After that, will leave it open for editing for contributors, and with luck, can finish by Wednesday.
Okay, so 12:00 PM PST, give or take 20 minutes. :)
Chapter one is tentatively final. I ended up cutting rather a bit more to bring this more in line with classic ECB guidelines -- mostly, unfortunately, cutting out the chatter between us and focusing much more on addressing the author directly. If there are no complaints, then I'll post this chapter on Wednesday. I'll ... probably only get through chapter two tomorrow, since it's a huger chapter. Let's say (for now) 48 hours for review after I tentatively finalize something.
Sound fair?
Chapter two tenatively final. I feel bad about cutting out a lot of MST quality lines; maybe we should consider getting together to only MST instead of ECBing something for fun, some time? :p
Anyway, going to say Thursday for chapter two. I'll also try and finish chapter three today, since it didn't take nearly as long as anticipated, and the sooner we can finish, the better. :D
Three is kind of roughly finalized, too. The final block of text needs a bit of work, but I'm not sure where to go from where it's at. :x
Chapter three ending and four done. Will probably do five tomorrow, and if so, on Saturday actually post.
Can't wait to read... I wonder if I should be ashamed for this excitement... :D
Belated, but chapter 5 is done. I'd like to post this tonight or tomorrow, if possible, so let's get those last-minute edits in!
IT IS DONE.
http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php/topic,102557.0.html
Also, I feel like I need a drink. Something to get the taste out of my mouth.... Any further feedback, let's go ahead and shift to the official thread.