Subject: RE: [FFML] [Fanfic][R1/2] Ill Met By Starlight, Chapter 7
From: arromdee@inetnow.net
Date: 12/17/1997, 3:47 AM
To: fanfic@fanfic.com

On Tue, 16 Dec 1997, Richard Lawson wrote:
You are not evil.  I am, in fact, going to be releasing very soon a Bitter End / Thy Inward Love crossover.  The rough draft is written; it just needs some polishing.

I don't believe this will work.

The differences between the two stories don't just start after the end of
the manga.  The two stories make different assumptions about how the events
in the manga relate to real life--hitting is or isn't as serious as it would
really be.  You can't choose both of these assumptions when writing your
crossover (unless you want to have two universes with different physical laws
related to hitting).  You have to pick one, and no matter which one you pick,
your assumption will be completely compatible with one of the stories and
completely incompatible with the other.

Basically, it's impossible to write the crossover without taking sides.

You can cross over IMBS and TIL because those stories have different
backgrounds and differently acting characters, but aren't different on a
meta-level like Bitter End and TIL are different.  There can be both a
psychotic Ranma and a sane one, but violence can't be both slapstick and
serious.