[I think the FFML has it in for me. Every time I post something here,
something goes wrong with my computer. I wrote this up last night, but when
I tried to post it, my mailer kept telling me that my ISP thought that
ffml@fanfic.com was an invalid address. *grumble* Anyway, here's my
response from last night. Hopefully this will go through this time.]
At 06:05 PM 11/23/98 -0700, Grayson Towler wrote:
Glad you've been enjoying it.
Criticism noted. I didn't quite mean it to come out so hard on Ranma, but
everybody has some growing up to do during the story, and I'm working towards
that with him. Part of what I tried to get across as well (evidently
without too much
success, alas) is that Ranma is a bit punchy at the moment. He's doing some
sort of dream training which is depriving him of his much-needed beauty
rest, he's
stuck in the mountains, and there's a monster on his tail. It's wearing
down his
nerves a bit. Ranma does have the capacity to be a jerk - he also has the
capacity
to be a hero. Over the whole of the story, I hope to have a balanced
portrayal.
This chapter evidently concentrated on his "jerk" side more than it maybe
should
have.
I happen to agree with this assessment of Ranma's character, actually.
After all, we are talking about a 16 year old boy with little to no real
social exposure prior the start of the series. And in truth, I think you've
done an excellent job of portraying that. It's just that in doing that job
of portrayal, you're walking an awful fine line between good, deep
characterization, and character slander. I think I'm going to echo a
comment I once read someone make about Alan Harnum's work WUE, in that it
wouldn't necessarily be so bad if I could only read the next chapter and
get a better idea of where you're going. *grin* Obviously, you need to
write faster!
Er... scheduled for the next chapter. The idea here is that Ranma is
(without
really realizing it) emulating his father's training style. He may even
be doing
it overkill (as teenagers often do, untried in the art of moderation as they
generally are). In any case, Genma seems to base his training on almost
complete negative reinforcement. Ranma's must (and - spoiler - will) learn
to moderate his approach.
And that one little spoiler both quiets my fears and kicks my curiousity
into overdrive. When IS the next chapter due out? ;-)
I plead guilty to liking a great many of the Ranma characters a great
deal, and
wanting to portray them well. Ryouga, for instance, gets a nice bit of
work in
this training segment. One of my observations about Ryouga (which most
authors don't seem to dwell upon much) is that he does appear to be a very
good trainer. In the anime and manga, he does a nice job with Akane during
the Rhythmic Gynmastics thing, and in the anime episode with the two false
Tendou sisters, he really helps Akane out with her martial arts. Ranma,
on the
other hand, seems to be a very lousy trainer, judging by the way he always
cuts Akane down whenever she's trying to practice or improve. Not that Ranma
can't improve, of course.
The only thing I have to say to this is that this IS Akane and that we
often treat the ones we feel strongly about, wether it be hate or love,
entirely differently from everybody else. Of course, in the light of the
lack of any other evidence...
Now is this the author's bias, or good storytelling?
Good storytelling, of course!
Then I applaud you for it. I must say, I really don't see anything but
heartache for Ukyou, unfortunately. I can understand why she fights so hard
to hold onto her delusions of romance, she really hasn't been presented
with another, viable option. Unless this was going to be a Ryouga and Ukyou
fic, perhaps?
It's supposed to be the latter. Taken as a whole, I hope "Relentless"
doesn't
seem too slanted towards any one character. After all, if you look at the
last
chapter, Ukyou did a pretty lousy and selfish thing to Ryouga. She's no
saint, but her internal dialogue is likely to favor her own impressions.
Agreed. Which is what I meant by Ukyou's thoughts being biased.
(Who *will* be here next chapter, regardless!)
I hope it doesn't take so long!
I hope so too.
Scott
--- I am decidedly pro-Ranma biased myself. I try rather hard not to let it
affect my judgement too much, though I know it does. Ryouga, I like, though
I don't think it's ever effected my judgement of a story the way my bias
for Ranma has. As far as Ukyou goes, I've always felt she was a rather
bland, two-dimensional character, any fleshing out you can do for her is
good.
----------
Scott Pollert [pollerts@hsonline.net]