No, not what happens _after_ the series, but what happens _during_.

The stories don't just continue the series in two different ways,
they make different statements about what the series was like all
along.

And why is this is bad?  Don't all fanfics use the same source material and come away with different interpretations?

An example:  Let's set up a story.

We see a man walk into a bar.  He orders a drink, with ice.  He drinks it.  He leaves.

Build a story from there.

In one, we might say the glass contained poison.  He dies a few minutes later.

In another, he gets drunk, crashes into another car, injuring himself.  He loses his license and his job.  He must rebuild his life from the ground up.

In another, the alcohol loosens his inhibitions.  He goes to the apartment of a woman he has been secretly admiring from afar.  He confesses his love; they begin dating.  Eventually they get married.  A wonderful story.

All are valid endings to the same beginning.  All of them are faithful to the source material.  None of them invalidates the source material.

Same here with BE, TIL, and Ranma 1/2.  Ranma 1/2 is, after all, mostly a visual medium with some thoughts, dialogs, and expressions to help us figure out the characters.  Yet there is an *awful* lot left unsaid, and is open to interpretation.

In TIL, Akane got mad because that was her personality.  She unfairly judged Ranma because she was immature.  She grew out of the immaturity, and she learned to control her anger a little better.  Happiness ensued.

In BE, Akane got mad because she had a mental illness.  The illness was untreated, and worsened.  Misery ensued.

Both are valid interpretations of the source material.  Neither of them invalidate the source material.  The existence of one story does not mean the other was false; rather, that there were different reasons that the characters behaved exactly the same way in each universe, up to the point of the start of both stories, when the paths diverged.

My story took the characters and put them in the other universe.  BEkane found the beginning of healing in the warm, loving TIL-Ranma.  TILkane found the ultimate consequences of her violent tendencies in BEnma's grave.  This helped her to make sure that the cycle was not begun anew with her own son.

That was my story.

-Richard
sterman@sprynet.com

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All of my fanfics can be found on my fanfic web page.
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/sterman/fanfic.htm
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