Rumiko Etheridge writes:

The Legend of Ranma Saotome

Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own any of these characters. I'm
just fusing them together. Ranma 1/2 belongs to the Rumiko Takahashi
and Legend of the Duelist belongs to Rutledge Etheridge.

    No, you're not fusing them together. What you've done is copy
down the first chapter of "The First Duelist" by Rutledge Etheridge,
changing the name "Simon Barrow" to "Ranma Saotome". Oh, and made
at least one typo, as well. This would be more like plagiarism than
a cross-over.

Heh.

I've never read the original story, and I could tell right off that this
wasn't a valid crossover. Ranma and Kuno were unidentifiable. The original
Ranma is an uncultured martial-artist jock, and didn't have the slightest
clue about real life. This Ranma seemed too smart for his own good, and was
too cynical to be clueless. Kuno Tatewaki was a pompous ass; Tarnon Kuno is
just an asshole. There also wasn't a scent of martial-arts anywhere... not
that it's absolutely vital, but it is one of Ranma and Crew's
distinquishing characteristics.

After finishing the second chapter, I deleted the entire thread.

Ironically, although the characters are not the property of the fanfic
author, the _STORY_ is an original work and is the fanfic author's
intellectual property. The original creator of the characters could no more
render and publish *your* story without *your* permission, as you could
publish stories based on her characters without her permission. I am
reminded of a case where a group of schoolgirls got a contract with Steven
Spielberg to have their _Tiny Toons Adventures_ story animated for real
moolah (apparently, Steve thought the script was from his own production
staff).

This should tell us something: fanfiction is about *producing original
works* through already-established characters and backgrounds. Zen's
_Bitter End_ could not exist without Zen any more than it could exist
without Takahashi-megamisama.

I refer to Etherigde's fic as a "grepfic", because it seems like the only
thing the author did was run the original work through the grep utility. A
_robot_ could "create" this and similar fics. Rumiko Etherigde needs to
respect his/her creative talent enough to produce a unique story... a true
work of fanfiction.


                           ---------------------
##   ## ##   ## #######  ##   ##  AKA Tom Jefferys, Time Lord for Hire
##   ##  #   #   ##   ## ### ###      "Have TARDIS; Will Travel."
## # ##   ###    #####   ## # ##  Wielder of ANVIL and SPAM!
### ###    #     ##  ##  ##   ##     [ Will code for food! ]
##   ##   ###   ###   ## ##   ##_of_UT haunts <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>
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"What kind of stupid alien escapes in a car?!"
                                     -- Kizuki Mitsuha, Silbuster ch.1