Discussion Fanfic / TheReturn

removed a second level example from The Worf Effect "** The Company itself. Unlike the Senshi, who have only lot a cat, agents have been dropping like flies against the cyborgs. It seems that only the Brood can take them down."

The company has been a steady source of Mauve and Red Shirts from the beginning, it has remained pretty much the same in terms of that function. If anything the company's technological and resource capabilities have been increasing.

Erm, that sounds a bit like having your cake and eating it too.

If the WIC loosing a lot more people isn't "showing things are serious", because they weren't setup as a badass... then how does Usagi count?

Last I saw, the author had always portrayed her as whiny girl with power incontinence. Not exactly a candidate for worfing.

Also how is it that the Senshi fighting and managing to survive everything the Russians throw at them shows that they're being nerfed, but when the badass normal WIC agents get slaughters in droves they're shown as superhuman?

The author portrays both groups as being helpless without the mighty brood to save them.

And then there's the habit of pairing off the two most powerful combatants (Dark Star and Galina) to pointlessly butt heads, thus keeping them out of the fight.

Edit: In short the Worf effect is when an ostensibly badass character is pummeled by every new villain just to show how badass they are. Thus the worf effect can't apply to a character that the author has deliberately nerfed and then humiliated.

Because beating such a "loser" doesn't show off the new villian's power.

The company itself serves the same function it always does, the supply of Red Shirts to be killed on operations. Same as starfleet provides them for Kirk (I think they come five to a blisterpack myself, with uniforms you have to paint on yourself:o) ). With regards the Senshi, you are right (my apologies, I was getting my tropes mixed up), it closer to Overshadowed by Awesome.

You okay for me to change?

Yeah, just gotta keep your Author-Appeal tropes straight ;p

Though to be fair, having Usagi be overshadowed by the others and feeling useless is pretty cannon. Maybe that's a deconsturctuion/reconstruction flip at work there too?

Yeah, of course irony is I'm going to be doing a check on all the tropes sometime later this week to check out they still mean the same as they did when they were originally listed (the TRS has been active in redefining tropes recently). Can you imagine the pained sound I would have made when I discovered during it that I'd screwed up myself?

Proposed:

• Overshadowed by Awesome — Usagi and the Senshi; originally seen as desirable by the company as allies and key to the "something" that is going on, now seen as just being generally a bit useless, in need of protecting and severe training despite increasing in powers.

Well they're still seen as being desirable for the given "something", which is why they're being protected in the same place. If the Company didn't need them they'd just ship them off and never accept the contract to protect them.

Also wouldn't you want to train if you are increasing in power? And careful with that, if the Senshi are getting powers back then that makes the nerfing even more confusing (which it is)

Overshadowed by Awesome — Usagi and the Senshi; originally seen as desirable by the company as allies, key to staving off the Reality Collapse. Now they're seen in [[theload need of protecting]] and severe training in order to keep them alive until the Stars Are Right.

Okay, stripping out the contested part, and replacing it with yours. Oh, I think you've got a typo in your mutual disadvantage entry: "Their versions different Healing Factor versus Made of Iron" did you mean "their different versions of ..."?

should be "Their versions are different..."

.

Yup. That's how the Russians were introduced. The Senshi go to Dark Merc's first lair and after they rescue Minako they get shot at.

Reading it, much of end of the chapter is Svelana and Morgan fighting.

http://www.fukufics.com/fic/the_return_21.htm

ta muchly, and duly added.

Tropes Are Not Bad

But yeah.

Funny, last I checked there were no rules against posting dissenting opinions in Fanfic Recs and to my knowledge there are no rules period on the content of the Contributor pages.

Also I'd very much like to know how labeling something Better Than Canon and reducing the dissenting opinion to a hottip is more "even-handed" than labeling it Canon Defilement and immediately giving it a YMMV disclaimer.

"Funny, last I checked there were no rules against posting dissenting opinions in Fanfic Recs and to my knowledge there are no rules period on the content of the Contributor pages."

This would be relevant if someone had said there was a rules violation, instead it was "keep an eye on" and that one of the comments was "a bit nattery."

"Comartemis: No, good stories are entertaining. [Jubban Incident] is not. Wandering J is partially correct, however; I didn't finish the fic because I couldn't stand to read it past the part I quoted above. It's been years since I even looked at this one and I still remember how much I hated it when I first read it; it's arguably my one of my most-hated Sailor Moon fanfics in existence, second only to The Return. "

This kind of shows that you're not exactly prone to being even handed. Since you specifically call out how much you hate The Return, in a recommendation page where Return doesn't even come up.

Hence the word of caution.

And this isn't even counting you rage against Return having senchi turn evil. When that happens in Every SM adaptation. Mercury herself turns evil in the live action version.

The canon defilement post was very even-handed. I slapped a YMMV on it before I even started to make my case (same as I did for Shinji And Warhammer 40 K's Jump the Shark entry before it got edited), I pointed out exactly which type of Canon Defilement it qualified for ("Extreme genre shifts", and you can't deny it has that in spades), and then I added a bit of elaboration because I felt it was necessary to emphasize that The Return is Sailor Moon + Grimdark, not just Sailor Moon + Darker and Edgier (Pity Grimdark isn't its' own trope anymore).

"And this isn't even counting you rage against Return having senchi turn evil. When that happens in Every SM adaptation. Mercury herself turns evil in the live action version." The Senshi get turned briefly and then get turned back when Usagi saves the day (The live action version doesn't exist so far as I care). Moreover they're Brainwashed and Crazy on the rare occasions it does happen; from what I cared to read about the succubus transformations in this series, Ami and Minako have effectively been killed off and replaced by Original Characters same way most of the Ranma cast have been replaced by Darkstar's broodmates. I believe my "rage" as you put it is quite thoroughly justified by having characters I know and love killed off and replaced by a bunch of second-rate Original Characters.

" (The live action version doesn't exist so far as I care)."

By that logic you'd have problems with a grim and serious Princess Serenity taking control of Usagi, or a Sailor Luna. And it's fine to dislike those things, but you can't be angry at a fic for using them and call that Cannon Defilement. Not to say that this fic doesn't have extreme deviations from the Canon, but evil and crazy Senshi ain't one of 'em

" Moreover they're Brainwashed And Crazy on the rare occasions it does happen; from what I cared to read about the succubus transformations in this series, Ami and Minako have effectively been killed off and replaced by Original Characters same way most of the Ranma cast have been replaced by Darkstar's broodmates."

Okay.... this is a prime example of Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch. Neither Ami or Minako were turned to succubae. And Ami *is* pretty crazy, given her paranoid ranting and such. Also Minako *was* turned back to good by Usagi.

So... not only are you very angry at this fic, but you haven't even read the thing fully (and why would you if you hate it).

But still you have goofed up on some basic stuff. So far none of the Senshi have been turned into demons, and the only canon Senshi that is evil, is one that was canonically turned evil, and for much of a plot arc.

Hence the "keep an eye on" in the OP.

Grim Dark was culled for a reason, it was treated as "it's dark so I don't like it". Canon Defilement is pretty much the same "it's different so I don't like it".

To be honest the same really applies to Better Than Canon only in reverse they both should be cutlisted, or at least ported out to the Darth and Sugar wikis.

You don't like it, Com, that is fine no one says you have to, but if you go to the fic itself on fanfiction.net you'll see the overwhelming feedback and reviews are positive. Canon Defilement fics don't get that, they get mocked and shredded. I'll agree there is a small minority of reviews that share your opinion, which is why your view was left in as a hottip to reflect that the majority loved it and a small (albeit vocal) hated it.

As for your own views, you've been extremely vocal about your dislike for this fic in other pages so your views on the fic's entry are suspect because of your dislike on pages where it isn't even mentioned.

"Okay.... this is a prime example of Complaining About Shows You Dont Watch. Neither Ami or Minako were turned to succubae. And Ami *is* pretty crazy, given her paranoid ranting and such. Also Minako *was* turned back to good by Usagi." Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch Enough, maybe. I did read this one a few years back and I decided I didn't like it at all (Don't like most of Sunny's work, actually). And succubus or not, Evil Mercury is Character Derailment and Canon Rape all by herself, and I don't care what excuses Sunny tries to make for her.

"As for your own views, you've been extremely vocal about your dislike for this fic in other pages so your views on the fic's entry are suspect because of your dislike on pages where it isn't even mentioned." Fair enough. I'm satisfied with the Love It or Hate It entry so I'll leave the rest of the page alone unless I get some masochistic urge to read the rest of the series.

Who was it that said compromise is where no one ends up happy :o)

Canon Defilement is a bad article anyway.

the space needle as a burlesque pole, that is all.