On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Gary Kleppe wrote:

This was another one hour fic, inspired by a certain fanfic cliche.
Multitudes of fics postulate Genma as having made zillions of fiancee
arrangements for Ranma as a child, even though he only did this *once*

Well... twice.  Don't forget the Chardins.

Ranma wasn't "as a child" for that one.

That's a nitpick.  It's like saying "I didn't rob any other banks on September
21st".  What's more important and relevant is whether you did it, period.
Genma _did_ try to engage Ranma at least 3 times, even if one of them was not
as a child; you can't really blame it on fanfic cliches.

Yeah, that works. Or the Saotome one could be a second one, with a
previous one having run off in the same manner.

The engagement to Akane could be the second one too, for that matter.  (And
yes, to make it be the second in every single way, the other engagement
probably would have to be before Ranma was born, but that's not really a
problem.  Nodoka might even consider multiple engagements to be manly.)

Oddly, I've never seen a fic based around _this_ premise.