I actually want Ranma and Akane together because they're in love. If
they don't get together, it's obvious from the manga that they will both
be miserable ... And if they're not, then the characters are OOC. And,
basically, I only like OOC in it's place - in an elseworld story, where
it is clearly marked to be in another universe/world/time frame/etc.

     Remember, Kun-chan, there is a limit to how much you can take IC.
Sometimes, the story will flow so that the actions of a character move
him/her away from what is normally considered IC. A good example is
"True Love" where Nene does something horribly OOC. Well, no, given the
situation, it is quite IC.
     This doesn't, however, hold true for certain types of fics. For
example, given a fanfic which is similar to the actual Ranma 1/2 Manga,
there will be no character development/changes.
     However, in a more serious fic, authors often use a thing called
character development. Sometimes, along the course of a piece of fiction,
and almost always in anything very good, the characters will act human in
that they, well, change. Sometimes it's very major ("True Love", "Who's
life is it anyway"), sometimes its rather minor or non-existant (fanfics
which don't deviate any from RT's manga). The difference comes from
whether or not you want human-acting characters.

And all the people who put Ranma with someone else are just tearing apart
a relationship without reguard for anything - home wreckers, almost.
So I think if they don't like to work within that already set relationship,
they don't care about love or relationships all that much, and when they
put Ranma together with <insert name of their favourite Ranma girl here>,
they're acting out their fantasies by replacing Ranma with themselves
(or how they would be if they could do martial arts and had some of
Ranma's characteristics) and getting the Ranma girl of their dreams.
So I don't think it's got anything to do with the characters, and it's
more like otaku wish-fulfilment.

     So, are you telling us that a fanfic is either "RT's bland and
undeveloped characters" or "it's an elseworld story"? I can't agree
with that, nor can I agree with your statement that it's just otaku
wish-fulfilment. There has to be some sort of happy medium where a
good author can take the molds which RT has given us, and apply detail
to them.

But then, if the guys that write like that are Akane fans ..... ^^;;;
And I don't know about the girls who write like that, if they do ...
probably just want to make their favourite female Ranma character
happy, and don't care about the real Ranma relationships ...

     Then, there are people who want to see wives beaten (or in Ranma's
case, husbands) and stifle creativity. :)

     Hey, that does bring up an interesting point. Why should we forgive
Akane's endless pounding of Ranma? Even if he calls her names and so on,
usually he's at least partially right (she *CAN'T* cook through most of
the manga and she *IS* a tomboy by definition). That doesn't give her
cause to be a fiance-beater.
--
Ben Kosse bmk7411@cs.rit.edu
BGC Otaku and worshipper of the Red-Eyed Goddess. Member of ShAS.
Anime, RPG's, computers, poetry (read/write), music (listen/compose).
Author of the Bubblegum Crisis theme pack (see the homepage below).
Homepage with anime and other interests. (http://www.rit.edu/~bmk7411)