Zen,

Wow! You weren't kidding: a story where Akane "gets" Ranma.
I expect you're going to get a lot of flack over "The Bitter
End." I like to confine my C&C to a fanfic author to private
e-mail most of the time, but I think I'll make an exception
this time. I thought you might like a contrary view to the
flack where others can see it. Right up front I want to say
that although I found this story disturbing, I also found it
quite realistic. I have a good friend who is a professional
counselor and psychologist. I've introduced this friend of
mine to anime and she enjoys a lot of it very much. After
watching the first 18 episodes of Ranma 1/2, though, she
didn't want to see any more. Her "take" on the characters
isn't identical to your's, Zen, but she saw an awfully dark
side to the whole Ranma universe. The majority of her
practice is in family counseling, and it was a little too
much like work time rather than play time to watch Ranma,
she said. She went on to wonder out loud if Rumiko Takahashi
used the Japanese equivalent of the DSM IV to design her
characters. The DSM IV, for those who might not know, is
"the book" for diagnosing mental illness in the United
States. 

I don't think this makes Ranma 1/2 any less funny, but it
does make me think that there are levels within levels in
the story and characters. In my not so humble opinion,
anyone who dislikes "The Bitter End" because they believe it
to be an invalid interpretation of the Ranma story is
just... well... wrong. Luckily, the Takahashi universe is
wide enough and deep enough to allow for a lot of different
interpretations, and your report to us after taking a long
look and thinking deeply on it while not funny at all, is
_disturbingly_ realistic.

It may even do some good. Odds are excellent that some of
the people who read this story will be victims of abuse
themselves since there are, sadly, so very many. It may give
to one of them that intangible spark that moves such a
person to start to look for a way out. And that's no small
thing. There are a lot of true things about real abuse of
real people that are cold, hard to take and frustrating as
hell. Possibly the worst is that many abusive situations can
not begin to get better until the victim decides to take
action. Something they are usually very reluctant to do.
Virtually all abuse success stories begin with some
insignificant thing that tips the scales just a bit in the
direction of doing something to make a difference. 

One of the most interesting things that can happen with fan
fiction is the new and unexpected direction a story can go
in when a person thinks deeply on the content of the entire
source and draws their own conclusions from it. Thanks for
sharing this with us. "The Bitter End" is on my personal
list of very good examples of "Dark" fan fictions. I think I
need something a lot more fluffy and funny now myself. Maybe
I'll go reread "Elseworlds : Lookin' Down the Barrel of a
Glomp" for a change of pace.

Best,

Bob Barnes
rbarnes@moscow.com
Moscow, Idaho

When opportunity comes, the trick is to CATCH the red hat.