Subject: [FFML] Comments and Musings
From: Hunter Kid
Date: 8/7/1997, 4:41 PM
To: fanfic@fanfic.com

With all the comments going around about Benares's 'Stepping Stones -
Ukyou's Tale' story lately, I thought I'd add mine to the heap.

Basically, it was depressing, but I liked it anyway.  It wasn't a
dark-depressing-evil-kill-all-the-characters-at-the-end story, and
definitely wasn't as depressing as something like 'The Bitter End.'  (Zen
screwed up my opinions of Akane for life with that one. ;)

I don't think any further comments regarding the fic are neccessary - it
got its praise when it first came out, and was good enough to have about
10,000 stories in its wake trying to copy it.

However, I'd like to ask about the author himself, Benares.  Is he still
around?  I sent him some email a while back, asking whether 'Two Sides of
the Coin' was ever going to be finished, and haven't received an email back
yet.  Also, I don't think his page has been updated in a long time.  

(I like split-Ranma-into-two-people stories, even if they tend to be
somewhat similar.    By the way, has anyone ever seen one of the
'split-Ranma' fics actually *end*?  I haven't.)

I was thinking the other day, and realized that many of the best authors
either:  write extremely slowly (e.g. Zen), have disappeared (e.g.
Benares), come out with stories very infrequently - as opposed to Zen's
'it's slow but it's going to come out I promise' style - (e.g. Twoflower).

Bailesu's famed Elseworlds series is wonderful, but it seems to be
suffering from the first two problems.  That is, it's either coming along
very slowly or not at all, because the four currently available were also
the four available about a year ago.

Regarding the 'best fanfic' thing, I liked one that's not too famous:
Careful Destiny.  Doubt any of you have actually heard of it, but the
author, Todd Hill, does an excellent job of characterization and creates
'Ranko,' Ranma's sister, into a believable character.  As to which fanfic
is the most famous, it could very well be the Elseworlds series.  Most
people seem to be familiar with it, at any rate.  If not that, then maybe
'Putting Your Heart in the Right Place,' a fanfic that I never actually
read for myself.

Lastly, what happened to Ta'veren 1/2?  I read the first three parts of
this the other day, and found it pretty amusing.  How come the production
of this has stopped?  Lack of fan interest, perhaps?

Hunter Kid
http://www.serve.com/guilds/ranma/
guilds@mail.serve.com