Red's Reviews: Fragile Clay Matrix
Continuation Title: Fragile Clay Matrix
Author: Kaoru L. Shimitsu
Status: Ongoing
Rating: 2

     This is a fanfic I wholeheartedly urge you to print out.
     Especially if you are running low on toilet paper.
     This fanfic is an example of bad fiction. Very bad fiction.
     As I read this piece of literary offal (and I use "literary" only due to 
lack of another term), I frequently had to remind myself that it did indeed have 
an end. Nothing this bad could go on forever.
     The first thing that struck me as wrong is the hyper-punctuation that 
appears so frequently. Now, don't get me wrong, I can understand the need for 
the occasional "?!" or "!!" when the need to express a *lot* of emphasis or 
emotion arises... but using "?!?!?!?!?!?!" and "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" for 
everything?!
     Further down the toilet that is Fragile Clay was the unbelievability of 
some of these characters. For a 'fic that's supposedly a continuation, the 
characters here seem to have jumped from various alternate universes.
     One example, Genma. This is not a Genma I recognize. Worried about his 
son's well being, caring about his feelings, and encouraging him to pursue a 
relationship with a man? This, in my eyes, goes against every impression I ever 
got of the original Genma. This is typical of the characters in Fragile Clay.
     Then there is Ranma. Even allowing that this is a fanfic, this Ranma is 
unbelievable. Although the entire plot of this story is that Ranma believes 
himself to be falling in love with another man, nothing that Ranma thought, 
said, or did in this story made me believe it. It just didn't jive.
     To depart from the character flaws, there is the story itself. With far 
more "I'm Ranma, I'm in a emotional dilemma, feel sorry for me dammit" sludge 
than there is need for, this story is a very...well, I won't say Dark, so let's 
say Gloomy... a very gloomy read. For me, this is saying a *lot*, some of my 
favorite fanfics are of the angsty type.
     On another note, there are a few storylines in this fic that seem to have 
no connection to the rest of the story at all. The whole bit about the water 
elemental chase through the streets of Nerima is unnecessary and pointless.

     Summary: The storyline isn't bad per se, it's just done badly in this fic. 
I read this fanfic once, a long while ago and then again to do this review, and 
both times I wished I hadn't. With a major rewrite and a character 
reconstruction, this fanfic might be salvageable. But as it stands, it's a 
flusher.