At 19:56 8/21/1998 -0400, Jonathan Ng wrote:

Zen writes (in response to Gary's response to Sean's response to...
whatever.):

Now, in Sydney Kyle's fic, "Akane and Ranma", Mr. Kyle portrays Ukyou
as Ranma's best friend.  Again, there's no real proof either way.

             ^^^^

note the word "best".

The word "best" noted.

(But again, however, there are reasons why she might be, or might not
be.)

There's strong indirect evidence that she's not, and I know of
absolutely no evidence that she is (I've challenged people to come up
with some).

Ara?  Strong evidence that she's not his friend?  Like what?

Actually, there's strong evidence that Ukyou is Ranma's friend.  But what
they're talking about is whether Ukyou is Ranma's *best* friend, which is
another story entirely.

No one has been able to prove Ukyou is Ranma's *best* friend, although it's 
been speculated in a lot of fics.

By "best friend" do you mean "as-close-as-a-loved-sibling confidante" or
"friend who's closer than any other friend"?  Sometimes these aren't the same.

Ukyou as Ranma's "as-close-as-a-loved-sibling confidante" isn't supported much.

Ukyou as Ranma's "friend who's closer than any other friend" is supported a
lot by the lack of much closer friendship between Ranma and anyone else.

So Ukyou being Ranma's best friend in the manga (not before, in flashbacks,
or after) is either probably bumf or not bumf at all, depending on which
definition you use.

Perhaps she mallets him into the ground without hearing his side of a story

(cut comparisons for space)

instead of giving him free food?

Now, now, let's not compare her to other characters, shall we?

In a way, Ukyou can only be Ranma's best friend if he has no better friends.
Even a distant friend can be your best friend if all your other friends are
even more distant than s/he is.  So comparing Ukyou to other characters
might be the only way to answer this question!

<think think... think...> Ah!  Sou!  She blames him for all her problems,
and tries constantly to kill him, while sleeping with his fiancee!

....... (Girl sleep with girl?  Zen, you're really starting to run out of
ideas.)

Gosh... could it be that she gave up her vendetta against him 'cause he
called her cute?

Calling anyone cute could stop them in their tracks... especially if the
one doing it is nice-looking...

Zen gives up.  What is this evidence that Ucchan is not Ranma's friend?

Ucchan is Ranma's friend.  We just don't know if she's his *best* friend.

And if Ranma wanted Akane, do you think that Ukyou will really try to stop
them? (She did once...)

Oh wait, scratch that thought.  You wrote "A Bitter End" already.

That said, Zen freely admits that his interpretation of cannon may not
agree with yours... and beloved Ucchan is as good an example as any.

Cannon?  Let's not play with fire here (kapow!)...

The fun thing about canon is that if you accept anything that Takahashi
didn't say didn't happen as possibly happening "behind the scenes" of the
canon, then you're both right!

Hurm.... again, you bring up Ukyou... if one were paranoid, one might think
that you didn't like her or something...

Fortunately, Zen knows better. ^_^

Yup.  Otherwise Zen will go on personal vendetta for ten years ^_^

I criticized Long and Winding Road for claiming a Ranma/Ukyo friendship
DURING the manga. Admittedly, it may have been erroneous of me to lump
BE into the same category, but I still stand by my other criticisims of
that story.

Well... as for the Ranma/Ukyou friendship, you have yet to prove to Zen's
satisfaction that Ukyou is any less a friend to Ranma than anyone else...
most notably the hammer happy harridan you're so enamoured of.  Certainly

Still, calling Akane names isn't good.... (even if you *do* hate her...)
and even if it is true...

there's a stronger case for Ukyou being Ranma's friend than there is for
Ryouga being his friend... but no one ever seems to have a problem with
THAT interpretation.

Yeah, but Ryouga won't be Ranma's friend out of the blue... it will take
time and effort (so will Ranma and Ukyou getting together, or Ranma and
Akane getting together, for that matter)

Or you could just have them remember stuff that you made up that "happened
pre-canon" (i.e. R&R having been lovers in middle school, which I saw in a
fanfic but don't remember its title; Takahashi never said that R&R were not
lovers in middle school, right?).

 While Ukyou wins in Zen's fics, Zen is quite capable of enjoying
interpretaions of the characters that pair him with other people.

Me?  As I told the guy who runs the Ukyou and Ranma webpage (Phillip Mak),
if a satisfactory explanation is included, I don't really care who Ranma
ends up with.  (As a matter of fact I like LaWR thank you very much except
for the introduction...)

What Zen will say, is that character issues aside, Zen tends to enjoy most
the stories that have a lot of the AUTHOR in them.  No, Zen does NOT,
repeat NOT mean the dreaded 'Self Insertion' fics.  Zen means a fic where
the author put a piece of his or her heart and soul into what they wrote
because they CARED about it... and the characters in it.

Does that mean you'll hate darkfics? :) (it will be a very dark soul indeed
that writes a dark story with all of his/her heart)

Zen hating darkfics?  If "Bitter End" isn't a darkfic, what is?