Oh, for Pete's sake. Now I'm dragged into this shit again. See what you
did, Redneck? :)

On Wed, 7 May 1997, Redneck Gaijin wrote:

Who's talking about -Ranma's- assumptions? That's -my- view of how Akane is
portrayed here.

["I'm angry. It MUST be Ranma's fault! I'll punish him for existing!"]

 That is how the manga protrays her.  She attacks Ranma at the slightest
assumption.  As for the cooking incident, well, despite the fact that it
turns out toxic all the time, she continues to try and fail.  She never
listens to Ranma, and always assumes that he is making fun of it.  Why did
she try in the first place?  Simple.  She temporarily snapped under the
strain.

Don't buy into it.

As is your option.

For every occasion in which Akane mallets Ranma, there is an open-hand slap,
a toss-over-shoulder, a splash of cold water, or- *gasp* - nothing. Akane is
*NOT* so mindlessly violent as you portray her.

Unfortunately, the burden of proof is on you, Redneck, if you want to prove
to us that Akane's acting OOC, as you're the one claiming that she is OOC.
Unless you provide evidence, all you're doing is flapping your meat at us.

Here's a suggestion: How 'bout going back to your mangas and actually doing
a count of each chastization ("open-hand slap, a toss-over-shoulder, a
splash of cold water, or - *gasp* - nothing")? That way, you'll have some
hard numbers to back up your claim, or at least set the record straight.

While I'm on things which don't work, what's with the curse? Suddenly
Ranma's curse is locked into place, with no explanation whatsoever. Within
the framework of the R 1/2 universe, there is zero credibility for this.
Explanation of some sort is required, and fast.

Where? As far as I can tell, Ranma's curse seems to we working fine.

 Besides which, the fanfic is not done.  I am not going to portray her
the same way through out the entire story.

That's even **WORSE.** Characters *MUST* be consistent with themselves. If
you make a change, it must be believable and supported by internal or
external causes. Turning Akane from Homocidal Violent Bitch into Considerate
Mournful Martyr overnight just plain won't cut it.

I don't think he ever meant to say that he WOULDN'T make Akane develop
Akane to that point. Besides, there's always time for back-revision.
Nothing is set in stone until it's put onto the RAAC.

Characterization is such a fuzzy concept anyway because it is the result of
a sum-total of the character's behavior. Everyone has different tolerance
level for the "error" of characterization. Redneck here, for instance, has
a strict tollerance for how far an Akane can deviate from his personal
"ideal" Akane before he complains. Others, like Ryan, have a looser
tollerance for HIS personal "ideal" Akane. These ideals are an uncertain
thing, as we only see the surface of canon Ranma 1/2 characters. We
roleplay all the time; our true natures and our outward demeanors can be
(and often are) vastly different.

Canon Ranma 1/2 characters are very shallow; they react very predictibly to
novel situations. The DEEP characters are the ones that surprise you. I
remember a story I read in seventh grade (I forget the name) about a
seemingly perfectly ordinary housewife commit the perfect murder of her
husband. The way that she acted (to her friends) did nothing to suggest
that she would have the urge or the competence to do that. She was
described as "a deep character." What was most scary was that, on the
surface, she acted _just_ _like_ _KASUMI_! (Sweet dreams kiddies! ;)

Real people often act unusually under novel circumstances; some of the
actions of these people are considered heroic. Osckar Schindler was a
hardcore Nazi. Yet for some reason he saved 1300 Polish Jews when other,
less fanatical Nazis were blowing them away. (The film had him witness the
plight of a red-coated little girl, but we don't really know what caused
him to do that. Maybe he just had a good heart under all that fanaticism.)
The workings of the mind are too complicated to predict with certainty.

To confine Ranma 1/2 characters to a certain rigid characterization is to
render them flatter than okonomiyaki. Unpredictability to novel events is
what makes characters interesting, as long as they deal with their unusual
reactions later.

Oh, and one other thing; the fic has absolutely zero comedic content. That,
above all else, is a fatal flaw in any Ranma fic, IMHO.

It IS your humble opinion.

However, it is _not_ gospel.

Comedy is a feature of a story or series, NOT of the universe it's set in.
When you get down to it, the Ranmaverse is very cruel to all its
castmembers. It's only funny to us because _we_ don't have to go through
what they go through.

A universe, any universe, is a literary tool, as are the characters in it.
Just because "Ranma 1/2" was a comedy doesn't mean that we can't use the
Ranmaverse to explore the darker side of humanity. Indeed, I think it makes
Ranma and his chums _better_ tools for Fiction Noir than characters native
to dark genres, as the contrast the normal and derived is so striking.

Besides, you said yourself that you were engrossed with "The Bitter End".
Not only that, you gave enough of a shit to actually bitch about Akane's
character. Ie, it held your attention and it provoked your thinking. That
sounds like a successful story to me, and Zen was doing his job. ;)

So you want a Ranma 1/2 comedy fanfic?

Go out and write your own goddamn fic, because you can't force us to write
one for you. <said in the nicest possible way>

                           ---------------------
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