Gross Nepotism


Despairing of actually having anything worth-while to say, I occasionally have to search out filler. Mmm, tasty filler. We love filler, yes we do, we love filler, how 'bout you?

Fortunately this time I have something more interesting than communist mutant frogs (from SPACE!). Namely, the fact that my younger sister has been writing fan-fiction reviews of several Neon Genesis Evangelion 'fics. Now, for those of you who don't know what fan-fiction is, just go read Team M.E.C.H.A. ... ha ha! That's just a little 'inside joke' (not that there's anything inherently wrong with Team M.E.C.H.A., of course (well, besides Summer (but we digress))). Anyway, fan fiction is taking characters and premises and plotlines made up by other authors and doing terrible, terrible things to them out of love and adoration, since outright robbery is the sincerest form of flattery.

Some fan-fiction doesn't limit it's borrowing to one series, but cheerfully pulls from whatever is at hand (sometimes we call these 'crossover' fics). Generally these sorts of things require a sense of humor, as the wacky conditions required for their existance defy all suspension of disbelief. Sadly, many fan-fic writers do not have much of a sense of humor.

Enter Neon Exodus Evangelion. Neon Genesis Evangelion, you see, is a popular, crack-inspired anime series which is just chok-ful of biblical imagery and references, as well as appropriately angstful characters and keen mecha. Neon Exodus Evangelion is... um.

Normally I don't criticize other writers unless I could do what they're doing better. However, 1) I don't think this will be a problem here, 2) I'm not the one doing it.

A caution, of course. My sister is just as cruel and heartless when it comes to tearing apart tripe as I am. Which, of course, is the sole reason I'm featuring this here (as I'm sure most of you care precisely jack squat about anime).

(Terminology: An Avatar is when the author blatantly inserts him or herself into the story, or when one character is blatantly the authorial viewpoint character and thus is a complete bad-ass. This sort of thing leads to the term self-insertion which has precisely the meaning you may think it does. MST/MiSTing is a reference to "Mystery Science Theatre" which roundly scoffs at bad, bad science fiction, and the form has been adapted to scoff at bad, bad fan fiction too! Gendo is the manipulative bad-ass of Eva, Ritsuko is the Science Babe, Kaji is the secret agent working for every secret organization in Eva at the same time, Kaoru is a poor bastard who got whacked to save the world and Shinji is the whiny, angstful main character of the original series...)

Ladies and gentlemen, my sister.

Review: Neon Exodus Evangelion
Best-Written Piece of Utter Smeg
Rating: 2 for Part 1, 3 for parts 2 and 3
Neon Exodus Evangelion: featuring one of the most annoying Author Avatars ever, as well as big words and that classic term: "negative commentary". Hoo.
Summary: It starts on the very first episode of NGE. Only... Shinji has been replaced. And Nerv headquarters has been moved, for no adequately explained reason, to Worcester, New England. The Avatar, DJ Croft, shows up to defeat the 3rd Angel and immediately proceeds to be amazingly rude. Despite this, all of the girls of EVA, almost without exception, manage to fall all over him. Oh, yeah, and Jon's there too.
Flaws of this fanfic: There are so many places to start... I'll go with the most obvious one, DJ Croft. I HATE DJ Croft. I wish he would die a death similar to that of the REAL 5th Child, poor Kowaru-kun. He takes the place of Shinji, which is bad enough on its own, but then he has to whine even more about how he was kidnapped and cruelly forced to save life as we know it. Awww... poor little contrived git. He is reported to have actually claimed to be (I am not making this up) the "handsomest and most sophisticated 14 year old on the planet". Don't laugh, it gets worse. His Plot Contrivance field is of unprecedented strength and power, giving him the ability to make girls fall in love with him by insulting them. Oh, did I mention that he is the son of (pregnant women and those with heart conditions should leave the room right now) LARA CROFT AND FOX MULDER. And this is only the beginning of the wretched crossovers that abound in this series. Will somebody please tell me what possible reason the author could have for putting a HAL 9000 computer in DJ's possession? And he goes to school with the Sailor Scouts! That's just WRONG! He also anglicizes (is that a word?) the names of all the school children; i.e., "Toji Suzuhara" becomes "Tommy Sullivan". Then aliens start showing up, and demons and...
Alright, let's get off this subject and onto the other really annoying part of this series, which is the original characters. The author has no qualms about replacing those characters he doesn't like / has no use for. Well, it turns out that the ones that were replaced were the lucky ones. All of them seem to have had all of their intelligence sucked out of their minds so that DJ can save the day and have his ego stroked (among other things.... *ahem*). I'm not even going to go into that lemon scene with Asuka... The author (Ben Hutchins... did I forget to mention that?) also vilifies characters to make DJ look like the good guy. Gendo is not supposed to be this nasty, Ritsuko is not this unfeeling, and Kaji... What has he done to poor Kaji-san!?! Deliberately mischaracterizing someone like that ought to be outlawed. In the later parts, the author seems to have realized the mistake in how he's portrayed Kaji, and pulls out a plot device to rectify the situation. Although the original characters have more independence and are able to do more stuff in the later 2 parts, I still can't forgive the early mistreatment of just about everyone, and the abomination that is DJ Croft.
Not all of this fanfic is bad. It does have redeeming features, the main one being that it makes a lovely MiST. I actually found myself enjoying it, in a twisted sort of way, especially the later parts. In part 2, you can find the cathartic 'Beating Up of DJ Croft by "Tommy Sullivan"' scene, which I still maintain as the best part of the series. It's not really all that bad, you just have to allow yourself to become numb and disconnected from reality before you read it.
Explanation of the title: For all it's flaws, the 'fic is extremely well written. A real paragon of grammer, it is. A pity, but it truly does deserve the title of "utter smeg". And it was written by the great Gryphon, author of the classic Undocumented Features. My, how the mighty have fallen.
Recommended for: Whenever one wishes to destroy all illusion one has of the inherent goodness of mankind.

Please let it be known that all of these reviews are entirely opinion and also made by a person with virtually no taste at all. Therefore, no insult is meant to any person, even those that deserve it. Hey, I'm just trying to provide constructive criticism! You can't blame me for having fun while doing it. Any fanfic that I rip to pieces in these reviews is copyright its owner. I'm going to try to look at the good side as well as the bad side of all fanfics, no matter how hard that may get at times. Nothing personal, really.

A note on scoring:
The scale is from 0 to 5. Ratings are as follows:
5---Damn near perfect 'fic. Must read for anyone who is familiar with the series in question. Will probably be impossible to MST.

4---Not perfect, but really, really good. Highly recommended. Can be used in a parody MST.

3---Fanfic limbo- something to read if you've nothing better to do. Might be made into a MST if it isn't too boring.

2---Poor fanfic. Has badly done plot/grammar/characterization, though probably not all three. Perfect for a MST.

1---Horrible fanfic. Will probably have poor grammar and plot, may be offensive. Might make a good MST in the hands of an experienced and talented MiSTie. On the other hand, killing yourself might be preferable to reading it.

0---Fanfic capably of causing physical illness and mental scarring. In addition to being badly done, is incredibly offensive. Will make a poor MST no matter who does it. Killing the author is preferable to reading the 'fic.

That's about all I have to say. Enjoy!

--Lemon-chan

Brings a tear to yer eye, dunnit. -snif-. Maybe they should call kids today Generation Surl.
Dragonball Z Update: Goku continues his 20-G practice... well, at least until he runs into one of those characteristically rocky asteroid belts that always seem to litter the spaceways. His giant bulbous spacecraft takes a beating, but he doesn't notice. Well, at least, not until he gets a call from 'Mission Control' (aka one guy and a rather surly, anthropomorph pig sitting around in a van with some cats) wondering what the hell is going on out there. It seems the spaceship is off course due to the impact and due to a horrible lack of planning it can't get back on course because the friction (?!) on the holes has dragged the darn thing off course. Towards a star. Oops.

Goku gets in a spacesuit, goes out on the hull (at faster than light velocities, mind you!) and promptly falls off. Luckily he's secured by a cable and can haul himself back in. He then patches the hull, panics when he sees the star rushing towards him, and steps in the adhesive he used to patch the holes. And gets stuck.

He is, however, such a bad-ass that he's able to deflect himself away from the sun by (essentially) sheer force of will.

Meanwhile, back on Namek, Freeza's forces have noticed their spiky pink leftenant has gone missing, but Freeza is unconcerned. With his forces canvassing the remaining Namek villages, he's sure to find the remaining Dragonballs.

Meanwhile, in subplot C, Vegita homes in on a Dragonball-holding Namek village and proceeds to show off to try and bully them into giving it up. When that fails, he just starts kicking ass.

Meanwhile, in subplot D, Krillan, Gohan, Bulma and the Dispose-a-Namek (poor little blighter practically has "I'm going to sacrifice myself heroicly to inspire the heroes to new heights of ass-kicking!" written all over him) have lunch. Except the Namek Kid isn't hungry. He reveals (after Bulma surls about how nobody respects her cooking) that the Namek people are so bad-ass they survive only on water.

But they're not so bad-ass that they can beat Vegita, as the Vegeboy goes through them like a fourtieth level fighter through an orcish village. And, predictably, after wasting the entire village, he wanders into a temple and finds the Dragonball just sitting there.

Apparently, the Nameks, despite being advanced enough to discover interplanetary space-craft, aren't intelligent enough to notice that their planet has been under attack for several days.

I've heard of monkish isolation, but dang, even monks have cellular these days.

Vegita throws a kink in everyone's plans by tossing the Dragonball in a convenient lake, where Freeza's forces, with no spare scanners, will be unable to find it. He seems to be the only one with a brain in this whole thing...

In Subplot D, the heroes angst about how everyone else on this planet is an unstoppable bad-ass, except for their side.

In Subplot A, Goku is back inside the spaceship (having somehow managed to take off his spacesuit boots and get back inside) and ready to... sit around for another few days of flight. Woo hoo.

Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or small woodland creatures of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Squeeze the lemon.

THIS SPACE FOR RENT