I've got to tell you - my advice is to dump the Ranma bit and
make it a straight Battletech fic.
When I started reading fanfiction a few years ago, I thought
that fusions sounded like a neat idea. Having read a whole lot of
unsuccessful attempts, and very few successes, even by fanfic
standards, I'm coming to conclude that there are some significant
obstacles that make it difficult to write a good fusion.
You take a character from Environment A and make him/her a
native of Environment B. Now if A and B are pretty dissimilar,
like, say, "Ranma 1/2" and Battletech, you've got two choices. You
can adapt the character to fit into his/her new environment, in
which case you risk losing most of what is recognizable about
the character, or you can leave the character alone, in which
case you risk having a main character who just seems completely
out of place in the story.
The descriptions I've read so far all sound like the first
case. If I were to read a story written along these lines, and
you had changed Ranma's name to John and Akane's to Jane, I don't
think there's a chance in hell I would recognize who they were
supposed to be, because they don't sound a thing like the characters
we know from the manga - not surprising, perhaps, since they have
grown up in completely different circumstances. Plus, they're not
engaged by their fathers, Ranma's not cursed to turn into a girl
and isn't being chased by a variety of other women, etc. My
question is, what is being brought over from Ranma other than
the names? If all you've got is a very general setup with this
guy and girl who fight a lot but end up getting drawn together
despite themselves, you could just as well call it a fusion with
"Much Ado About Nothing" and call them Benedict and Beatrice.
Come to think of it, you said something about possibly having
Ranma get involved with Nabiki or Kasumi, so you don't even
have that much of "Ranma 1/2" left. You don't have the characters,
you don't have the martial arts or the curses or the fiancee
mess or the tangled love story - what the heck is left? I
honestly think you're much better off dropping the fusion bit.
Reid Carson
rcarson@mnsinc.com
rcarson@rcarson.com