Ranma is easy to do since there is enough of the base material to make a 
story while knowing with almost absolute certainty that they won't be 
contradicting the author. 

Contradicting the author?  I think that some fanfics out there go above and
beyond what Takashi Rumiko intended for the characters to do. :)  (Works such
as Nekophilia and 4 Stories of Porn spring to mind ::applauds authors for
their bravery::)

Well... there are some exception. ^_~

But I meant in an OOC way. A story where Ranma is running around killing
people  while foaming at the mouth and partying with Kodachi willingly is
probably not what R. Takahashi had in mind. That's the type of character
contradiction I mean. And yes... 4 stories of Porn are totally insane and
blow this paragraph right out of the water. ^_^

"Most of them are terrible" Heh heh...OUCH (::pulls daggers and other
assorted sharp objects out of heart::)!!  While my humble little first SM
fic, Wrong Choices (shameless plug...read it, it's good for you ^.^) didn't

I must make a clarification here. For a while (Bows head in shame ^_^), I
was on the alt.fan.sailor-moon newsgroup. The ratio of lame to good stories
that were posted there was, in a word, discouragingly high. So I'm a bit
biased in my judgement (In other word... you probably should ignore me
about the SM stuff ^_^).

--
  ___________
 / Here lies:\   "I am the Fisk of the North Star, Spider-man" <SMASH>
|   Andrew    |  "Now someone get me a new phone!"
|             |
|   I think   |                    Andrew Petalik
| he's hungry |  
|             |  "Koala" - Lina Inverse