Patrick McClanahan <patmccl@microsoft.com> wrote:

	The number one reason for this apparent lack of innovation: Ranma,
Ranma, and more Ranma. It seems like only a few months ago, there were all
kinds of new avenues being explored. A wave of Kenshin fics, a Boku no Marie
fic (and the start of another), a Tylor fic from David Tatum (that was
thankfully never finished, if it's to be as dark as it looks), FF7, You're
Under Arrest, Patlabor ... all kinds of new possibilities. Add to this some
interesting new directions in the traditional non-Ranma sources, namely
Sailor Moon, Eva, Tenchi, and BGC, and you get a lot of good variety when
you're tired reading about Akane malleting Ranma.

While I thank you for the compliment on HaM (which I snipped), I'm
afraid you're beating a tired, old, and very, very dead horse here.

This sort of argument pops up on the list every so often. If only people
would write more non-Ranma fics, the sun would shine, birds would chirp,
and C&C would ring joyously across the land.

The truth is, what series you write has little to do with the
originality or quality of your fic. There are lots of reasons why some
fics seem stale are many: plots with no conflicts, too much exposition,
bland characterizations, etc. If an author with these problems switched
to basing his/her stories on another series, is there any reason why it
would cure the situation? I don't see how it would.

Neither is writing based on a different series likely to affect the
overall amount of C&C on the FFML. Different readers have different
preferences. There are people like me who like Ranma fics to the
exclusion of most else; others who hate Ranma; and still others who
don't care what series a fic is based on as long as its quality is high
enough.

The one and only thing that's going to increase the amount of C&C for
FFML fics is if people on the FFML decide to DO MORE C&C. I challenge
everyone who's thinking of replying to this message to instead pick a
fic on the list and send a C&C of it, either to the list or to the
author. And I'll do the same right now.


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