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.

What I'm talking about when I mean 'OOC' is the character suddenly
acting like that for either a very convoluted reason, or for no reason
at all ... I don't mean like, say, over a long series where there is
a lot of character development and such things ... But what I call
'character development' is developing the character in the way that
the manga shows ... not developing the character in an opposing way.

     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.

No, I'm saying IC or elseworld story ... And, as I've discussed with
Chris Willmore, there's no way that Ranma can be happy, with his
characteristics given in the manga, with anyone but Akane. To get Akane
out of the picture, she'd have to die. Then Ranma would be heart broken
and a shadow of his former self. It's impossible to write one, otherwise,
without using magic to make Ranma fall for someone else.

Even Zen's story was OOC ... It had Ranma and Akane having some giant
fight, then Ranma going off and asking Ukyou to marry him, and going
off with her ... (or was it going off with her, then asking her to
marry him?) ... Well, that's just not the way Ranma acts ... Zen has
Ranma saying that he's doing all of this to make Akane happy... But
Ranma doesn't think like that ... he'd keep going back, trying to get
her to change her mind, like in the Shinnosuke story line. He may run
off for a while, but he wouldn't ask someone else to marry him. And,
even if he does, it's just a rebound thing that wouldn't last long.
By the time he's thinking more clearly, he'll go back to Akane...
Ranma doesn't give up - especially with Akane... He'd go around,
chasing after her, to make her say that he loves him.

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. :)

So Takahashi wants wifes to beat their husbands?

     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.

Ranma's hurt is emotional and it lasts MUCH longer than a beating. Plus
Akane's beatings are for comedy effect. What Ranma does actually makes
Akane feel she's worthless, most of the time ...

Kun-chan...