Geoffrey Ty wrote:
I have noticed that several stories in the archive that tell a what if,
branch off with Herb, and Ranma, in some way, Losing to him. Just curios
for some speculation why alot of you guys drew from that.
Well, for me it was a convenient way for Ranma to be stuck in female
form. Since Herb is very close to being Ranma's equal, both in martial
arts and chi-blasts, it isn't hard to conceive of a scenario where the
kettle gets lost during their tumultuous battle - especially when RT had
the whole mountain fall apart during their final fight. Ranma was lucky
to get drenched by water from the kettle - it could have easily gone the
other way. Notice that my story doesn't say that Ranma gets beaten by
Herb. Ranma just loses the kettle during the battle.
It was after I released "Thy Outward Part" that Nicholas Leifker wrote
and said, "Hey! Nice story. I noticed you used the Herb thing too." I
said, "Huh?" He pointed me towards the Sunrise chronicles. I'm glad he
did; they're excellent stories. At the same time, I went "D'oh!" If I
had read Sunrise before I'd written TOP, I would have used another
device, since I didn't want it to seem like I was ripping off Nicholas's
idea.
And yet, nothing else comes readily to mind. If you're going to write a
story about Ranma stuck as a woman, then altering the Herb story is a
great way to do it, since it's an already-established way of sticking
Ranma with a female form. If you had to invent something yourself, it
would seem too deus-ex-machina. RT's already invented the machine. :)
G.T.