I tried to ignore everything; his lame-ass C&C, his author-bashing, his
profligate disregard for etiquette, evrything. It hought he was an 

attention-

seeker out for a little notoriety, and that if I ignored him long 

enough, he

would go away, and those of us in the anti-establishment movement could 

regain

control and conduct things with a modicum of class.

  That is very naive of you. Ignoring someone won't make him go away. 

Then...... THEN..... I saw this.

Now. I'm. MAD.

  Next time you get mad, walk away from the keyboard for fifteen 
minutes, get a drink of water, then come back. The last thing we need on 
our hands right now is all-out war. 

As a fan, reader, and aspiring writer in Lawsons TIL universe, I'm very 

upset

at this pathetic attempt to discredit it as quality fanfiction. AND I 

notice

he didn't even have the guts to CC a copy of this to Lawson himself. 

  'Quality fanfiction' is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, TIL 
turned me off (but I won't get into that). 

Thy Inward Love_ was Lawson's primary work. He wanted to write a 
 continuation fic, so he HAD to write in all the characters he didn't 
 like. 

Ummmm...... no.

Who says he has to write in charachters he doesn't like? There are any 

number

of ways you can ditch a charchter in the beggining without going to any
trouble at all. Like Ryoga and Akari. He could have simply removed them 

both

off to the side with each other, boom. No fuss, no muss.

  Then everyone will wonder what happened to them. 

   He copped out by joining Ranma and Akane from the start, 
 automatically shutting out everyone else, and cheating the reader 

out of 

 a Final Battle. What we get instead is typical Lawson: Make Them See 

The 

 Truth.

CHEATING the reading out of a final battle? I beg to differ.

Lawson's story is CHARACHTER driven, NOT plot driven. It neither needed 

a

Final Battle, nor would one have been at all desirable. And what, 

prithee, is

wrong with making them see the truth, hmm?

  The Truth ain't the best thing in the world. 
  

   How he copped out of dealing with Akane's greatest rival for 
 Ranma's attention by having poor Akane injured in a fight was a sin 

and 

 an insult to the best all-around female character in the series. 

No.

  Yes. That IS a cop-out. Rather convenient. 

Takahashi herself once almost injured Akane in a fight with a 

disgruntled

Ukyo. Or aren't you familiar with the Okonomiyaki bombing incident at 

the

wedding, hmm?

  Okay, THIS can be argued. 

(Blade Mode On)

  Ukyo's art is partially-based upon projectiles, especially with 
cooking-related stuff. It is given that she has a terribly-accurate aim 
(although her intended targets are often much faster than the 
projectiles; ie, Ranma and Konatsu). It is given in the wedding that 
Ranma got blown-up by a nikuman and okonomiyaki. It is given that 
Shampoo was disappointed that she missed Akane. It is NOT given, 
however, that Ukyo was aiming for Akane. 
  It is given that whenever she gets mad/flustered/embarassed, Ukyo 
would beat up Ranma to the exclusion of anyone else in the vicinity. It 
is given that Ukyo never attacked Akane, directly or indirectly, during 
the course of the manga. 
  Unless this was a freak accident, where Ukyo just plain missed (which 
is not likely), or where Ukyo was aiming for Akane and Ranma simply got 
in the way (she's never been that lucky with her shots, and she never 
directly attacked Akane any time before that, and had no such 
inclination to do so any time before that story), Ukyo attacked Ranma. 

(Blade Mode Off)

 Since, he has put out her purely obligatory prologue, a small part 

in his 

 forgettable Next Generation fic, along with every other character. 

*ahem*

What of "The Ingredients of Okonomiyaki" one of the best damn 

angst-ridden

soul searchers I have ever read, eh? 

  That YOU have ever read. It doesn't mean he's read it. 
 

 I will say that he perhaps doesn't dislike Ukyou because she got a 

cameo 

 in the _TOP_ series, which is next to impossible for anyone he 

doesn't 

 like to get in.

If you want to know whether or not he dislikes Ukyo, how about oh, I 

don't

know..... actually ASKING him?

  Usually one can pinpoint author preference by his writing (although 
this doesn't always work). 
  

 Shampoo's portrayal was pathetic. You see, she REALLY doesn't need 

to 

 follow the laws of the Amazons--it was something she only did 

because 

 she sort of felt like it. 

The "optional" kiss of death/marriage part of fanfic convention. Nobody 

can be

faulted for using it.

  (cough, cough)

   She would have let it go at that, but that 
 evil manipulator, Cologne, forces her into trying to kill Akane. 

Good 

 thing for the ending that Akane's skill in the martial arts had 
 increased a hundred fold. 

  Evil Cologne is another fan convention. 

 Then, finally, Ryouga gets his turn. Typically, you would expect 

Ryouga 

 to go on another 'long journey' upon learning that Ranma and Akane 

are 

 getting married again like he did the first time. Nope. Lawson has 

some 

 Ryouga-bashing he wants to work out of his system. So poor, 

delusional 

 Ryouga shows up and gets into a fight with Ranma. You would expect 

their 

 'Final Showdown' to be spectacular. It was boring and cut short by 

the 

 Ryouga-basher's favorite device: Akane Finds Out About P-Chan. The 

king 

 rival in the series gets dealt with as an afterthought, manages to 

be a 

 secondary character in his prologue, and dies in _Magic_. Awww.

_King rival_? As if.

  Ryoga IS the Rival. That's the way Takahashi-san wrote him. 
  Although I disagree that Akane Finds Out About P-Chan (TM) is the 
Ryoga-Basher's Favorite Device (TM). 

In FIGHTING, certainly, Ryoga is Ranma's most powerful and foremost 

adversary.

  Ranma's got many adversaries that are far-more powerful than him: 
Pantyhose Taro, Herb, Saffron, Rouge, Cologne, Happosai, to name a few. 
Maybe even Mariko. 

I'll give you Magics detah scene. But just barely, and only because of 

the

resurrection

  Ressurection?! It's starting to sound like DBZ (read: cheap plot 
device). 
 

And, if by some amzing miracle Lawson HAS been condunting a secret 

conspiracy

against those charachters he doesn't like, thta's his perogative. this 

is

fanfiction. you're allowed to fold. spindel, and mutilate the 

charchters you

hate.

  Fan writers should, at least, respect the characters, if they want to 
write good fiction. 

 Am I reading too much into things? No, this is confirmed by Lawson 
 himself.

Only if you SEVERELY twist his words around.

  Hey, people get paid to do that (cough, cough). 

 Am I saying this is bad? No--or, at least, it's a lot better than 

openly 

 bashing a character.

Oh, sure. You write an entire letter about Lawson's supposed charchter
assasinations, then turn around and say you meant nothing bad by it. 

Uh-huh.

Right.

  The problem with communication these days is that what gets 
communicated by one is often heard differently by different people.   
Character assassinations? 

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."--JMS, creator of Babylon 5. 
"If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die."--Kosh, Babylon 5.
"Understanding is a three-edged sword."--Kosh, Babylon 5. 
"Never show your hand until the end."--me, being profound. 

--Razorclaw X

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