Krista Perry <kperry@aros.net> wrote:

Jitou wrote:

If you concentrate too much on canon and are afraid
to go against set standards, {standards which
were established by people no more authoritative
than being on this ML}, then you're really shutting the
doors to a greater opportunity.

How many good stories would not have existed if
the writers were too afraid to go against canon? I
dare say nearly all of them.

I'm gonna agree with Krista and Reid here. This tired old argument is
your basic logical fallacy of "all or nothing." I think just about all
of us would agree that any reasonable reader should be willing to accept
some variation in the characters. But it doesn't follow that a reader
should accept anything a writer does with the character.

To draw an analogy, if a fan artist does a picture of Ranma, it's
probably not going to be indistinguishable from one of Takahashi's, and
that's fine; but if someone hands me a picture of Dagwood Bumstead and
tries to tell me it's Ranma, well, sorry, but I have a bit of a problem
with that. Because *some* variation is acceptable (to a particular
reader) doesn't mean that ANY variation is.

I realize you're trying to be helpful here, so I'll try not to shed my
sweet Kasumi-esque exterior while I tell you what's really on my mind. 
;)  

Oh my!

immediately to mind.  I even read a story (can't remember the title or
the author, dang it!) where Akane became a cold-blooded killer because
of Ranma's death, and yet it was written in a way that, in spite of its
dark very non-Ranma-canon themes, I enjoyed it thoroughly because in
spite of how very different (even OOC) this Akane was, the author was
skillful enough that she was still an Akane I recognized.

"The Death of Love" by Steve Pardue. I also liked the story, though I
did have a problem with its treatment of Kasumi... but I digress. :)

Anyway, just wanted to say "me too." :-)


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html