At 12:14 AM 5/15/99 -0400, you wrote:

*sigh*  I, for some insane reason, feel like jumping into this...

You know, a story can be a great story and a terrible fanfic...

Unless someone doesn't know the difference.  This extreme doesn't wash.
Are you seriously suggesting that a majority of the people out there
know what Ranma 1/2 is?

Mr. Cannady, I think you aren't thinking clearly here about what a fanfic
is...

I've been writing them for nearly five years now.  I think I'm well
aware of what a fanfic is.

A fanfic is a story written for an audience consisting of fans of a
particular series or set of series (by definition- we are not counting ALL
types of derivitive works here, just fanfics.  A parody, for instance,
could be a derivitive work that is not a fanfic).  You are arguing that a
story can be good regardless of whether it is OOC or not.  Fine, I'll agree
there- as long as the character is consistant within the story.  However,
it does not make said work a good fanfic.  And, if you are TRYING to write
a fanfic, that is a BIG difference.

Wrong.  A fanfic is derivative work produced without the consent of source
material originators and possessing some ambiguous legal qualities under
the fair use clause.  It has nothing to do with the audience, and my
fanfiction is a perfect example of a work that is accepted by a
primarily non-Robotech audience.

How you write the fanfic depends on what you want to do.  I write
fanfiction with almost complete disregard for the source material
whenever I feel I have a better idea.  Why?  Honestly, I don't
respect the source or the originators ideas, and I write in
order to "correct" the "mistakes" they made in the first place.
That's my prerogative, and my audience apparantly has no problem
with it.

Suppose it wasn't fanfics that we were discussing.  Suppose I were an
editor for a magazine that publishes western short stories.  You submit a
story to my magazine.  It is a terrific story, remarkably well written, but
there's a problem.  While you are trying to tell me it is a western because
everyone is named Tex, they all speak with a distinct texan accent, and
they all wear ten gallon hats, it is set in the year 2500 AD aboard a
starship, there are no gunfights or cattle drives, and everyone is a robot.
In other words, it isn't a western at all, but instead is a science
fiction story.

Suppose we stick to the issue instead of going off on tangental
analogies that really make no sense.  I fail first of all to see
where you're going with this and I'm really stuck on what you
consider to be a Western.  Since a Western is a genre and not
a piece of source material, I think this digression really achieves
nothing.

Since the rest of your line of thought draws on these analogies
to form a conclusion that in itself connects apples and oranges
to form another conclusion, I'll have to stop here.  There are
others waiting for replies.

-The Reverend Prez

*  *  *

+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
|    Presley H.   | Political Science / Computer Science |
|    Cannady II   | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+     Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic    +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion  |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|