Michael White wrote:

At 11:24 PM 6/29/96 -0500, Scott Johnson wrote:

*snip*

Of course, a lot of the success depends on how much of the original 
setting can be detached from the characters.  Sailor Moon, I've found, 
works reasonably well, because even without the core characters, you can 
extrapolate to bits of the Dark Kingdom or members of the Sailor Senshi 
who could easily have been somewhere off in the background of the series 
- you keep much of the dynamic while giving yourself enough leeway to 
create.  It might be a bit harder with BGC, but you've still got GENOM 
and many of the social dynamics to work with.  With something like Ranma, 
though, I think it wouldn't really work - remove the Ranma characters 

>from Ranma and all you've got left is another generic martial arts/comedy 

setting, aside from the Jusenkyo curses.

Myself, I feel more *restricted* by using existing characters. You can't
really change them drastically, and you sure as hell can't kill them, so if
you want to do something really drastic you're going to have to bring in
secondary characters - basically red shirts - and use them. I'm infinitely
fascinated by the BGC world, but I'm not patient enough to put up with that
limitation :^)

Limitations?  Believe me when I say there are several very good BGC fics out
there where one or more of the KS have been killed, suffered grevious bodily
harm, have had to be replaced, etc etc etc.  I offer "Bubblegum Crusade",
"Knights End", and "Eye of the Storm" as exhibits A, B, and C.  And I know
of one currently being written [not by me] where a KS is too injured to
continue and a replacement is recruited and joins the group (and it's NOT an
insertion story either!).

Most of these type of stories *start* with the existing premise and take it
from there. So just because you're using the pre-existing characters doesn't
necessarily mean you're stuck using the same old scenarios (IMO).  But your
story had best provide valid reasons for things to change the way they do
(again IMO)


Jeanne Hedge

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