On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, Jon K. Hayashi wrote:

I would have to say that it can't be the same way because you're using 
someone else's characters.  If you are writing your own characters and 
situations, then you could set everything up the way you want it to.  
But then you also have to work at setting up the initial situation.  In 
the mentioned story, Akane doesn't love Ranma anymore.  But the 
original is a romantic comedy; Akane must end up openly loving 
(and eventually marrying) Ranma - that is the nature of romantic 
comedy, especially when the principles fight as much as they do.  The 
story only makes you wonder because it deviates from the nature of 
the original without explaining it.  It might have been more 
interesting (and emotionally involving) for the reader to watch the 
characters grow apart and then end on the aforementioned fanfic.  
But that would depend on the ability of the writer. 

	_Angel's_Spit_ was intentionally a very short fic.  In fact, I'm 
quite sure that your post well exceeded its length.  To have written any 
more would have, IMHO, deviated radically from the sort of work I wanted 
to produce.  
	I'm afraid that I have to disagree with some of your assertions 
about fanfics, though.  Yes, we more-or-less have a common frame of 
reference about the _past_ actions of the Ranma characters, and we _do_ 
know of certain obvious tendencies.  Ranma is a remarkably formulaic 
series.  In fact, I'd even go so far as to suggest that this is _why_ 
people like it so much.  
	This internal continuity does not, however, constitute anything 
more than a set of sufficient conditions for creating more of the same 
sort of work.  Yes -- AS deviated from the Takahashi canon and, 
similarly, Akane's character deviated from both the anime and manga.  
Then again ... so what?  Maybe the point of the story was to imagine a 
hybrid of the anime (or manga) and the Real World <tm> ... or maybe it 
was something entirely different.  Hell, maybe it even represented the 
author's perception of the tendencies of the series (hey ... wait ... 
*I'M* the author ... err..).
	The salient point really is that fan works are great because they 
_can_ stray from the original.  They represent our chance to see soooo 
many things in the Ranmaverse fulfilled that otherwise never could be.  
Where else could these characters acquire real depth, or be placed in 
such novel situations?  Certainly not in the manga ... We're not trying 
to sell tankoubans, after all.

But did it attempt to tie into the original?  I don't believe it did.  The 
majority of fanfics try to tie-in, at least to start off with, so that they 
can make the "twist" more effective.  But in tying it in, you have to 
take in account everything in the original (unless you specify a cut-
off) because you're using characters with established backgrounds. 

	Fanfic authors ostensibly choose from the same palette of 
characters.  This does not imply they're going to paint the same pictures.

CHL