Shade wrote:

Subject: [FFML][FIC][RANMA/Response]Not a Private Bet
#1: Fiancee Wars(Prologue

Hiroshi: Just when you think you've
seen the ultimate in subject line
clutter....

Daisuke: ...someone decides he needs to
tell people what his post ISN'T. Yeah.

Rowan: You do realize that that's
actually the name of this series?

Honestly, your titles are simply terrible.  

Prologue: A Fanfic Menace

Hiroshi: This mailing list contains known members of the international

fanfictionist conspiracy!! I have NAMES!

{The four stare at this for a moment}

Shadow: Needs to switch to decaf.

That was rather funny actually.  

They watched as Akane got to look into Ranma�s heart and soul.
Then they saw her still beat the crap out of him anyway.

Probably the best part about the original fic.  

�What a....� The Guardian was having trouble coming up
with an adaquate discription for this black haired and equally
black hearted.......

�Living waste of resources.� Shadow scowled as the
Tendo bimbo made a painful farewell between Ukyo
and Ranma even more heartbreaking.

Gary: And blah blah blah. You ever gonna tell us what you think was
wrong with our fic, or is this post just an excuse for childish
character insults?

Guardian: Why you...do we have to spell
it out in words of one syllable or less??!!

Rowan: Down Boy.

Shadow: Hmmm....I wasn't aware personal observations
were not seen as just that, observations.

Bard: Let's see...this fic basically does nothing
really. We have Akane being portrayed as the
innocent victim of everything, wishes that had
the potential for a better story going wrong in
such a way to only suit the authors' personal biases.

And conflicting with your biases.  Still, there is a
problem with the fic.  It really reminded me of that 
bgc fic, "The Tesla Effect"?  "Project Tesla"?  The one
"written" by Ranma characters.  The clashing authorial
biases left it rather a rag-tag piece of work...as 
round robins generally turn out.  

Lots of character bashing of Shampoo and Ukyo, Ranma
gets put through Hell, 

Ukyo?  What did they say about Ukyo?  

Rowan: They do realize that this is
       a Altiverse Fic, not a true C&C?

Not yet, it isn't.  

Shadow: Shall we give it to him?

{Others}: YES!!

[Chapter 1: Akane Tendo]

[ See how Shampoo likes being a cat all the time,
or Ukyou being a real man.
Akane giggled, shaking her head.
She would never do that.  She wasn't
the vindictive sort; she didn't really
want to hurt anyone, just to
sort of get them out of the way.]

Rowan: We're getting mixed signals here.
Her thoughts are contradicting themselves,

This is not a problem.  When I am tempted
and resist temptation my thoughts always
contradict each other.  

not mention that Akane IS vengeful and
spiteful too even in canon. Even placing

Not important.  Since the story is written
from Akane's point of view, would you say
that she thought of herself as vengeful and
spiteful?  (And, for the record, so is 
everyone else.  Ranma's unique virtue, at 
times his only virtue, is that he is less
inclined to carry a grudge than most of the
other members of his peer group.)

this after volume 38 isn't doing much to
get us to accept this kinder smarter
Akane pod person.

[ There was something wrong with changing
people's minds, though.  It was too
underhanded, too much like Shampoo's potions.]

Bard: Standard fanfic cliche, and Akane is not averse to
using underhanded methods herself from time to time.

Examples?  About the only thing I can think of, is that she
spies on Ranma when she thinks she might be losing him.  
As far as Shampoo goes, I only know of four times when 
Shampoo used mind control (counting both manga and anime).
Memory erasing shampoo, hypnotic mushrooms, puppet pressure point, 
and doesn't she use magic on Genma to control his <heh-heh>
"mind" late in the series?  

Akane has never done anything like that.  To be sure, that
might be a question of lack of opportunity and subtlety,
but you seem to be assuming that Akane is incapable of having
any scruples.  

I can see if you're showing us part of her hypocritical
side but putting it as the real her isn't cutting it.

I see no particular reason to think that we are getting
anything except the thoughts running through her head.

[She could make herself a great warrior, and finally
show Ranma what was what.  She could cook a great meal
and shove it in his face.  But no; she wanted
to do something huge, something significant, not
just to change a tiny corner of her life.]

Guardian: This is just wrong. Akane just
does not have this kind of insight. She WOULD make
an impulsive wish. Her emotions control her, not
the other way around.

Probably true.  The predictable thing for Akane to
do would be to wish up enough martial arts ability 
for herself that she would be the equal or better of
any of the fiancees or Ranma himself.  Nobody in the
series except Cologne would stop and think carefully
before making a wish, and Cologne probably wouldn't
make a wish at all.  

In the context of the story though, all that introspection
is there for one reason, and one reason only, to try to
build up the suspense concerning what her eventual wish
might be, and to justify her making an unexpected one.
Oh wait, that's two reasons.  

[Chapter 2: Ryoga Hibiki]

[Akane's toxic waste.]

Shadow: Okay. Even we use this cliche, but still....

Doesn't everyone who dislikes Akane?  

["Look," Ryoga said as he unclenched his fist.
"I can understand how you feel. Really. But Akane
and Akari aren't going to love you.
That's just how it is. Find someone else, for your own sake."]

Rowan: The mythical "noble" Ryoga. Frankly this is
just not happening short of extreme Divine Intervention.
By all rights Ryoga should have either
A) wished to be cured of his Jusenkyo curse
or B) Wished to be better then Ranma

Or C) wished for a good sense of direction.  
Or D) wished for Akane's love. 


 

[Chapter 3: Hikaru Gosunkugi]

[Asmodeus had arrived.]

Bard: For your information Asmodeus is a Devil not a demon.
There is a BIG difference between the two. Demons are evil
embodied in Chaos and Devils are Evil embodied in order.

Not unless it's a Ranma/World of Greyhawk crossover.
OK, so this is a D&D character talking.  

Also the appearence is just lame, having it just pop
in like that without a decent explantion does nothing
for the plot. Having another magic-user challanging Gosunkugi,
now that's more believable.

[....She lay a single red rose
on his grave and walked away.]

Guardian: Ugh....the stale melodrama is
as flat as day old rootbeer.
The battle reads like a grade school
tv action show. Also too much focus on Akane,
I find it hard to believe that Ranma didn't
do anything during or after the funeral.
It's just not him.

[Chapter 4: Mousse]

Shadow: Frankly, this chapter just sucked. Mousse is WAY
OOC here, the guardian angel bit was a copout. Mousse is
not a cold type of person, he tends to be more along the
lines of raging volcano, he has passion. The one here is
a corpse and that's BEFORE he dies.

The assumption is, I believe, that Mousse's raging emotions
are what kept him blind in the figurative sense.  

["Hear me out Saotome.  This isn't just
any ordinary case of post-pubescent
infatuation with a canonized figure,"
Mousse said evenly. "Hunh?" Ranma intoned.
Mousse thought Ranma looked near pain as
he processed the previous statement.]

Rowan: Can we say Shampoo hater writing here? 

Anyone who has a lot of sympathy for Mousse, is
likely to resent Shampoo.  

Also

note the appearence of cliche "Moron Jock" Ranma
at this point. The quality starts spiraling down
from this point on. Ranma is NOT this bad.

Yes he is.  A lot of people would say "hunh?" when
confronted with that jibber-jabber and Ranma's 
language skills are far from notable.  

However I really didn't like that chapter myself.
It was pretty arbitrary and led to some nasty
problems in later chapters.  Mousse's death 
struck me as a contrived way to avoid the 
consequences of giving a character Ultimate
Power.  Better not to give him Ultimate Power
in the first place.  

[Chapter 5: Shampoo]

Guardian: I'm sorry, but this is just unfair. If
nothing else this chapter alone demands
our twist to this tale. If you're going
to pick on Shampoo then we're going to pick on Akane.
Except that we're going to do a better job of it.

What did Shampoo do?  Wanting to marry Ranma is a perfectly
reasonable wish for Shampoo to make.  

Bard: The Unclean plot device stinks, Cologne
DOES have morals. Using her as a villain goes against
just about everything that took place in the previous 20
or so volumes.

But then Cologne is not acting of her own free will.  

[Chapter 6: Ranma Saotome
Sacrifices Must Be Made]

[Ranma sighed.
There was only one choice to make- he was just delaying
what he wanted.  "I choose to marry Akane- as much as
I've fought against it, she's the one I love... more
than life itself- more than my own comfort
or peace of mind.  Akane must be protected.
And if it takes losing Ukyou and hurting
others... well, sacrifices must be made."]

Shadow: Who are you and what have you done with the real Ranma?
BAD enough that the SI character appears here but this.....
This goes against everything Ranma Saotome stands for.
Sacrificing Ukyo just like that? He is NOT GENMA!
I'm sorry but this is just a poor excuse to match
up Akane & Ranma together by totally rewriting their characters.

[Five days later,
a certain device arrived from Herb's kingdom, on loan
(terms negotiated by Nabiki) to Akane Tendou for the
necessary amount of time.  The next day, Shampoo was
locked as a cat by the Musk Dynasty's form
locking bucket.  Shampoo was captured and locked away,
and not released back to Cologne until ALL the evidence
against Ranma's ancestors was destroyed, and Cologne

This line of reasoning is seriously flawed of course.
Anything Cologne found out could be found out by others.  

signed an agreement to leave Japan with Shampoo,
never to return.  Then, after getting Ranma a legal
divorce (thus ensuring that Shampoo's wish would remain
fulfilled in that she HAD been legally married to her,
which a simple annulment would not do) the cat was returned to
her.]

Rowan: Vindictive little author aren't we? Once again we see
universe being rewritten to please the KOTTF. Why not just
inject liquid nitrogen into Ranma's veins while you're at it?

This is a case of an author wrenching the story where he wants
it to go by brute force.  It has two problems that I can see.
The first is that the actual story hasn't been told.  Some extremely
involved events have been handwaved and synopsised.  What would Nabiki
have that Herb would want?  The second is that it wouldn't work.  
If Cologne wanted Shampoo back, she wouldn't have to bargain.  You
wanna start a war?  Cologne can give you a war.  Or if she wants to,
she can outsmart you and get what she wants.  The third is that if
Mr. Tendo knew about Ranma's untouchable status, there's no way that
he could ever consent to marriage to one of his daughters.  There's 
no way that he could, in good conscience, inflict that kind of social
stigma on his grandchildren, no matter how much Akane might love 
Ranma.  Akane might run away from home to marry Ranma, since as you
commented she is more ruled by emotion than good sense, but that's
about the only possibility.  

Oh right, that was three things.  Any Python fans out there?  

In any case, this rather brutal way of extricating Ranma was unnecessary,
when there was a simple and sensible way out.  Given what a lousy time
Shampoo is having, she divorces Ranma as soon as he knocks her up, her 
honour fulfilled.  Then Ranma uses his wish to destroy any indication 
of his ancestry and marries Akane or Ukyo.  Problem solved.  

[Chapter 7: Nabiki Tendo]

 Akane suddenly screamed as Ranma turned the mindlink on, showing her
exactly how her food tasted.

["Baka!  You planned this!" shouted Akane.
 She hammered Ranma into the floor,
yelling "And don't you dare show me how
_this_ feels!" as her blow struck home.]

Bard: Now why did he want to marry her again? Here we
have him sacrifice everything for her and yet Akane
STILL treats him like dirt and takes his affection for granted.
Even Love has its limits.

That's what happens when a different author takes over.  
This one doesn't exactly seem to be an Akane fan.  
However she is NOT taking his affection for granted.  
Far from it.  Probably the biggest problem here is that
Akane's behavior is the product of insecurity.  Alleviate
the insecurity and you should see some behavior modification,
and being able to read Ranma's mind, although it would give
her plenty of reasons for annoyance would also assure of something
Ranma will never say to her.

<< She's trying to separate us.  It's better if
you don't let it go any farther.
You said you're sorry.  You can come back now. >> ]

Shadow: It's Akane the (word that starts with "B"
and rhymes with itch). It's moments like this that
made us create the Private Bet.

That's why I've taken to deleting all of them unread.
Too much of an axe to grind.  The Bitter End did it all
so much better because it portrayed Akane as more than
this cartoon thug with no human decency.