On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Tendo Nabiki wrote:

Perhaps given the current discussions, this is a good time to respond to
your letter.

As good as any other, and perhaps better than some.

I grant you that there is no evidence of Nabiki having this kind of
experience. 

Excellent!  We agree on something.

However, the question I would put to is this:  can you see as
a possible interpretation of Nabiki's character?  Can you see in my Nabiki
the Nabiki of the manga?  I hope so.

Hmmm...  I can accept your version of Nabiki more readily than certain 
other versions ("Sour Milk Sea's" Nabiki springs instantly to mind), but 
no, I cannot see the *manga* Nabiki in your story, what I see is a Nabiki 
where certain traits have been exaggerated while others have been 
downplayed.  I can see where you are coming from, but you have taken 
a mercenary nature and a streak of selfishness to the point where I consider 
your Nabiki to be seriously OOC.  

At this point I must admit that being in, or out of, character is a 
matter of opinion and is often a fine line for an author to walk.  To 
make a story work you need to tweak the characters to suit your plot, the 
problem with Fanfiction is that you are working with pre-existing 
templates that others perceive differently to you. In this case our opinions 
differ and I doubt that can be readily reconciled.

As to Ranma being able to resist Nabiki because of Akane:  perhaps.  This
is certainly possible.  All I can say is I've been near a very similar
situation, which worked out badly.  More I will not tell, only to say that
the situation I forecast is eminently possible.

I find this argument... deceptive.  The point was *NOT* whether or not the 
situation was possible (I grant that in many cases it is), but whether or 
not it was reasonable for NAbiki to act in such a fashion as to cause the 
situation to arise in her family.  

I could actually see the story working much better if Shampoo was the 
protaganist rather than Nabiki, you have to justify Shampoo's presence 
and how she managed to seduce Ranma (but if you can justify Nabiki 
seducing him, Shampoo shouldn't be a problem) - but the basic problems of 
character motivation are solved, and equally importantly I can see 
Shampoo being willing to risk the consequences of failure whereas the 
price of failure should have been more than enough to deter Nabiki - 
asuming that she ever seriously considered the option.

Thank you for your comments.

I hope you found them worthy of your efforts.

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"The Major"                     |  "Funny Games, Strange Cartoons, Confusing
David Bateson                   |     Computers and too many Books!  No 
                                |     wonder you're weird."
major@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au     |       - My Sister.
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