Let the slaying begin! >> The Slayer Network ver 1

2003-04-19T02:47:00.000-07:00

Girls, we have new recruits for the Network. And also, we need to change the font color a bit to something more...relaxing. I think my eyes are also starting to swim.

2003-03-06T02:18:00.000-08:00

*burinkuu*

on that author oneesama wants to slay:

Saiyuki, saiyuki, saiyuki, saiyuki... more saiyuki... hora. powerpuff girls?

i can't relate. i have never watched saiyuki OR ayashi no ceres and the powerpuff girls fic she has is too mundane to bother with. i think i'll leave this to bell, the saiyuki expert. she knows all sorts of canon law.

judging from the titles of this kid i'd say she's got a long way to go. she reminds me of a certain author we once slayed, urd-'nee-- remember our first slay? we were so blinded by bloodlust it was the cause of why slayer net is up in the first place.

belldandy-- i leave this to you.

2003-02-15T22:48:00.000-08:00

Imouto-tachi! We have GOT to slay this author! ---> http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=213441

Refe-imouto has given us the chance to drive this bane out of ff.net and out of fandom!

2003-01-07T01:51:00.000-08:00

Before the people scream because Skuld-chan hasn't been working in here--

They're right, I haven't been working. Meep. I haven't the time anymore! But I'll get productive in a few, just a few days. Let me get my act together. >.<

2002-12-31T10:49:00.000-08:00

*takes a deep breath*

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO THE PANTHEON SLAYERS!!!

Hope 2003 will be the year for BIG slaying! ^^

2002-12-29T20:54:00.000-08:00

COMMENTS ON "THE SNOWMAN AND THE SWALLOW"

Holy Mother of God, it is huge! But no matter. It needs slaying. I will summarize this quick, since I'm more of the let's-cut-right-to-the-chase person. *Hefts a sharp spatula and cracks her whip*

"Chapter One: Ice"

1) There are VERY GLARING grammatical errors running through this chapter. Already, I can see where this is heading: TO EVEN WORSE GRAMMATICAL ERRORS! Honey, do us all a favor and FIX THEM. Better yet, take down the fic and go through all your errors with a beta-reader THEN upload the revised version. Spare me the torture of another migraine, please! *WHAPISSHHH*

2) I'm seeing REDUNDANCY here! Bad writer! Bad, bad, bad! You're flaunting your *ahem* wordiness too much! Read through Belldandy's analysis and you will see what I mean. Kill it before I kill you. *CRACK*

3) HAIR and THEM?! Ergh...Hair is a collective noun because you can't count hair! You try sit behind me and count how many strands of hair are on my head now, why don't you? Hair is always thought of as singular, singular, SINGULAR!!! The word 'them' is plural, plural, PLURAL! C'mon! Singular and plural! They don't only differ in spelling, but they differ in meaning! *BLAM*

4) My, I seem to have an "ignorant attitude" because my ignorance amuses me. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Please! That's SO obviously, horribly wrong! Flaunting again, aren't we? *BWAP*

5) Hold it, hold it, HOLD IT! "Cold icicles"?! If memory serves me correct, icicles originated from the word "ice" and when we think ice, we think SUB-ZERO COLD!!! Ice is, naturally, synonymous with cold. Meaning icicles are cold without the adjective, thank you very much. *THWACK*

6) When you describe someone by mentioning their age, it's HYPHENATED, dear. Like for example, me. I'm an EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD girl. Got it? *BWAPOW*

7) Overall, grammatical errors and horrid misuse of words aside, it was too cheesy. I actually had a rat crawling towards the pc just to get a better look at the fic. It's dead now. *Evil laughter*

Dearie, I'm praying that the next chapters won't be so bad, though I have a feeling that I'm asking for the impossible to happen. I suppose there is no such thing as a miracle.

~* URD *~

2002-12-28T00:13:00.000-08:00

Skuld gave me a "reading list" of sorts of fics to slay, and I have done as she has asked, starting with this fic:

COMMENTS ON CCS FIC "THE SNOWMAN AND THE SWALLOW" BY MYSTERIO000

First of all, this is a HUGE fic. Not to say that that isn't a bad thing. After all, I am probably the ONLY Pantheon member who actually encourages lengthy writing. Blame it on my writing senseis (Anne Rice and J.R.R. Tolkien); they're the ones who encouraged me to write long and lengthily.

The thirty-five chapter length wasn't so bad. After all, I HAD written something longer (think: FIFTY-THREE CHAPTERS to date!). But what intrigued me were the contents. So I had to take a peek. And although I am not quite a CCS fan (that's Skuld's department), I can usually tell good fic from badfic. And I do have to admit, this particular one did not live up to my expectations.

Allow me to do a chapter-by-chapter analysis of this piece of work. Since it IS made up of thirty-five parts, I cannot post all of my analysis right away. I will do it bit by bit by bit.

I shall tackle the first chapter in this post.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF "CHAPTER ONE: ICE"

The gentle, light wind blew across the thousand-colored seas and danced gracefully around the coast of the beach as evening rose from above before settling down onto the plain clear skies. Around, everywhere was peaceful and calm. Couples strolled along the quiet beach hand in hand and several kids ran around, laughing and playing.

-> First and foremost, the one that got me here was the phrase "thousand-colored seas". I think that "seas" should have been left in singular form, as apparently the character is only looking at ONE stretch of coastline and ocean. Also, I don't think anything can "rise from above". When something rises, it starts from the bottom and then goes up. Also, the sentence "Around, everywhere was peaceful and calm" is wrong wording. The wording should be adjusted to become something like this: "Everywhere there was peace and calm" or something to that effect. The original looks and (when I read it aloud) sounds weird. Another thing: I think that "children" is a better term than "kids". "Kids", in my opinion, is best used as a reference to children that one knows about or is close to. But if one is a casual observer, then "children" is a better reference.

But all alone, on the scenic view of the coast, sat a lone person. Dark azure eyes narrowing as he stared out to the slow but steady waves, hair swaying in radiance as the wind played along with them.

Fingers were clenched. Eyes were cold and fiery, scaring everybody off in sight just by a stare of his. Nobody wanted to befriend him. He was ignorant, probably caring less about himself than others and he was definitely downright cold. No matter how some tried, they could never get more than two sentences out of him in a conversation.

-> The phrase "on the scenic view of the coast" should be deleted. The scenery has already been described; we know it's scenic. It doesn't have to be repeated for us. Also, the word "lone" can be deleted as well, or perhaps the sentence can be changed to indicate that the person is alone or lonely. Also, a person doesn't stare TO, but stares AT. There's a difference. "Hair" was mentioned as singular, so why use the pronoun "them"? If there was a mention of STRANDS of hair, then "them" as a pronoun would be appropriate. In this case, however, it's a case of misuse of pronouns. I also noted that the eyes were described twice: once in the first paragraph, and another time in the second. The two should have been combined as one sentence, or perhaps two sentences that succeed each other.

Why...?

Nobody knew. He never told anybody about his ignorant attitude and never bothered to. He couldn’t care less anyway. Those who tried to melt the cold icicles of his heart always fail miserably, either getting a silent response or just having the cold, icy dark eyes stare back into theirs.

Ice.

Just ice surrounding his heart, shutting any other thing out from it. People, feelings, emotions everything.

And nobody shall melt that ice.

Nobody shall.

-> There seems to be a misuse of the word "ignorant" here. Initially, it was used to describe someone who didn't care about himself and about what went on around him. Now the use is rather vague, because it can mean someone who is stupid. Another word, such as "uncaring" would be more suitable. In the sentence "Those who tried to melt the cold icicles of his heart always fail miserably, either getting a silent response or just having the cold, icy dark eyes star back into theirs", "fail" should have been the past tense "failed" in keeping with the flow of the tenses at the start of the sentence with the word "tried". The rest of the sentence should be rephrased accordingly. And in the sentence "Just ice surrounding his heart, shutting any other thing out from it", the latter part should be rephrased as well. There's something wrong with the continuity. And as for the latter phrase, it can be combined with the previous sentence to form one sentence. The last two sentences "And nobody shall melt that ice" and "Nobody shall", "shall" is most appropriately replaced with "can".

The exhaustive voice cried out, "Eriol!"

-> "Exhaustive" should be replaced with "exhausted". "Exhaustive" means "complete" and "thorough". The word the author was after here was a word that meant "tired" and "weary" and that would mean "exhausted."

A faint smile crept on his features, "Eriol...promise me to strive for the best...Make me proud." The 13 year old boy hugged his father as tears uncontrollably spilled, "Don’t leave me alone, Dad!"

-> The dialogue of two different characters should NEVER run consecutive to each other. This only makes for confusion. Also, any number lower than 100 is best spelled out: thus, 13 should have been written as "thirteen". While it is allowable to "numerize", so to speak, numbers above a hundred, I prefer that they still be spelled out. But when numbers rise higher than a million, then those are best written in numerals. Even I would do that. Now unless they are part of the effect (like, say, a military document or something like that), then numbers lower than a hundred SHOULD be spelled out.

The wind blew again, brushing the dark hair away from its eyes as fingers pushed the strands away.

-> "Its" should be "his", since the author was obviously referring to the character and not to an object.

Rising up on both feet, the tall 18 year old person turned around and walked off from the coast.

-> Once more, the numbers thing. And in the phrase "walked off from the coast", it should be "walked AWAY from the coast". The person isn't getting off a transport now, is he?

The heart had already turned cold. Deadly cold. No emotions could enter, not a sign of liveness in it. Surrounded by only glaciers, nothing existed in it...No warmth, no feelings, no emotions...

-> In the phrase "not a sign of liveness in it", "liveness" should be replaced by "life". Sometimes making a word complicated only leads to grammatical errors. If this is a typo, then maybe the word here should have been "liveliness", but even then it'd still be off. Also in the phrase, "Surrounded by only glaciers", it should be written "...ONLY BY glaciers".

PLOT REVIEW ON "CHAPTER ONE: ICE"

-> The opening was alright, but the flashback was just a little too cheesy for my taste. The dying father, the grieving son, and then the father's monologue... Sometimes it can be pulled off, but for the overall effect in this chapter, it only comes off as rather corny. Flashbacks aren't always the best way to open fics. The best way to have opened the fic was to have the flashback scene actually occuring, rather than it being just a memory playing out in Eriol's head. It's not as cheesy that way. Any flashbacks can come later in the fic.

My analysis on the other chapters will come as soon as I have read them thoroughly.

~ Belldandy of the Pantheon

2002-12-22T19:10:00.000-08:00

Seems like my sisters have gone on ahead of me and introduced themselves, but that does not matter.

By the way, I am Harle, though in the Pantheon I am known as Belldandy, Goddess First Class. But just because I am First Class doesn't mean that I am the best in the Pantheon. My sisters have more experience in fic than I do. Believe me when I say that. They only call me Belldandy because, like my namesake in "Ah! Megami-sama!", I act rather innocent to the world and am supposedly "perfect". But I am not perfect. No, far from it.

The Slayer Network, I am told, was born out of a fit of anger when my onee-samas decided that there was just too much badfic in the Net and decided to put this up. Just as Kali, Hindu goddess of War and Destruction, was borne from the forehead of the goddess Devi in the heat of anger and frustration, so was Slayer Network borne from our own collective anger and frustration at the proliferation of badfic.

And what can I say? It's about time.

When it comes to fic, I am not as vocal about my nitpicks as my two other sisters. I tend to stay in the background, giving comments as necessary. But if anyone should so hurt my sisters, then heaven help me, I will come out in full force and chop the insolent fools' heads off and then some. I am not prone to anger, truly, I am not. But when push comes to shove or when it goes too far...well then, I say stay out of my way, else I shall kick your sorry arses to the moon and make sure you never set foot on this planet again.

My nitpicks are fairly technical in nature. I have little tolerance for SMS language when used in a fic, especially when characters are not using cell phones anyway. I am somewhat tolerant of bad plots, since those have the capacity to get better, but sucky grammar and spelling are inexcusable.

Plagiarism of any kind is equivalent to capital punishment from me, particularly if plagiarized work is one of mine or one of the works of my sisters.

I can be quite nice. I am a very patient goddess. But when it becomes too much...well then, if Urd-onee-sama was bad, the two of us together is far worse. Certain people can attest to that.

Badfic of the Net, beware! The Pantheon has gathered and they shall spare no mercy.

2002-12-19T01:02:00.000-08:00

Since my colleague has introduced herself, I probably should, too. The name's Ekai. Ekai Ungson. Around these parts I'm known as Skuld, Goddess Second Class, Limited Power. That's because I'm the most technical of the three. I can spot grammatical errors from a mile away, and I can name 'em and slay 'em in a few seconds. I think I act the youngest as well, even if I'm technically older than Harle (that'd be Belldandy) by a few months, because I'm also slightly bratty, and kind of a crybaby.

I might be a little cooler than Urd-neesama and Belldandy-neesama, as I'm the resident 'voice of reason' and 'pacifist' of the Pantheon, but you can sure as hell bet that I pack a mean punch when I see bad!fic lurking, especially those than include anything from Lavigne. I'm very particular about fics, and I quite think it's high time somebody went to town to slay, which is why I co-sponsored the Slayer Network with my oneesama-tachi.

I'm a Pantheon Slayer. I take no prisoners.

Just like the whole lot of us.

2002-12-18T21:33:00.000-08:00

It's about time we start slaying. But before that, let me introduce myself...

I'm Mainime, but here at Slayer Network, I'm better known as Goddess 2nd Class Urd of the Pantheon, eldest of the three. Personality-wise, I'm the resident bitch. My trademark weapon would be a vampire whip or a mace in order to slaughter bad fics or just about anyone who dares upset my imouto-tachi.

I may be a Goddess 2nd Class, but that doesn't mean my claws aren't as sharp as Belldandy's. Among the three of us, I have the most explosive temper (the kind that goes off like a rocket) and I am 40 times more deadly than a nuclear warhead. Believe me, you don't even wanna go there. I'm not one to be messed with when I'm pissed off...

Slaying starts now...

2002-12-18T05:17:00.000-08:00

Bonjour!!

*rubs hands eagerly* Can't wait, can't wait...

~ Lady Harlequin

2002-12-17T20:36:00.000-08:00

YES!!! Hahahah!!! Lovely!

*Starts sharpening her claws, knives, and cracks her trusty whip*

Give us the bad fics, people!!!

2002-12-17T20:06:00.000-08:00

Yes! We're officially open!~ Slaying will begin in a few hours. Ladies, sharpen those claws, we're going a-hunting!

2002-12-17T20:01:00.000-08:00

Let's hope for the tweakage to work so that we can start slaying!~

2002-12-17T04:35:00.000-08:00

Slaying will officially begin tomorrow, if by the gods Maia finishes with tweaks tonight. ^-^ Let the slaying commence!

2002-12-17T04:26:00.000-08:00

Test

2002-12-17T00:58:00.000-08:00

We will be open in a few days! ^^

2002-12-17T00:49:00.000-08:00

Testing!