After a considerable amount of surfing various fanfiction archives, I have come to the conclusion that there simply isn't enough Tenchi Muyo fanfiction, or rather, there isn't enough really really GOOD Tenchi fanfiction...
Discounting Sturgeon's Law (90% of science fiction, of ANYTHING is crap), I think we're really missing out, as fanfiction authors, on a goldmine here.
Tenchi's overdone, you say. Well, so's Ranma 1/2 and Sailor Moon, yet many talented authors continue to write excellent fics based on these characters. For every horseapple out there, we have a "Hearts of Ice" or "Waters Under The Earth" or interesting What-if stories like "Sailor Moon 4200" that take established characters off in new directions. Even Evangelion, the current apparent list-fave, has Alteverses (Children of a Lesser God) or divergent stories like "Garden of EVA". What I'm saying is that these universes are also heavily-used, but that doesn't stop writers from coming up with interesting spins on them.
So why not Tenchi? "Vacation Days", while a well-written and entertaining fanfic, is merely a drop in the bucket. The only other long-running fanfic opus (and by long running I mean more than four chapters) that challenges the mind based on any Tenchiverse I've been able to find is "Aiken Muyo!" and that's a lemon.
Note that I'm not saying that there's no other good Tenchi fics out there, (Hell, there's quite a few) but many seem to have been abandoned or are only one-shots (Hey Dreiser! You ever gonna write more "Ranma Muyo"?) What I'm saying is that it would be nice to see some of fanfiction's finest take a whack at a Tenchi fic or two.Or three. the more the merrier.
To be fully honest, I'd love to write some Tenchi fics myself, but I've got three Ranma fics (yeah yeah, I know, what was I saying about things being overdone?) on the go myself. So how about it?
Need some Ideas? Well, here's one or two:
Washu's mysterious child from the OAV series turns out to be Nagi the Bounty hunter.
Tenchi chooses one of the girls. (Yeah, I know this has been done, but there's so many of them, surely there's room to grow here)
ANY Tenchi Alterniverse fic. (One or more of the girls doesn't show up, or has a different backround, or they arrive in a different order, etc... Or what if Tenchi DOES decide to become Emperor of Jurai? It's a huge universe, people)
Background fics: We've all seen endless speculation on the backgrounds and personal histories of the Ranma characters, but what about Ryoko's adventures as a space pirate? Or Mihoshi and Kiyone's pre-Tenchi careers in the GP? What did Yosho do for all those centuries he was stuck on Earth? Who was Washu's husband? How did Asuza end up with Misaki and Funaho as co-wives?
Any and all of these ideas are free to anyone who wants to do something with them. (or if you happen to know of a nice fic along those lines, e-mail me the URL privately and I'll eagerly read it)
Anyway, rant finished. Happy fanfiction-ing to all, and to all a good night...
Here Endeth The Lesson.
Spa Fon!
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Dave Menard
Keeper of Pink's Hammer of Vengeance
Knight of the Combat Fiancees
Member of the Space Pirates Guild
http://matrix.crosswinds.net/~ksna/
"I would not, could not kill the King... I would not poison Anything!"
--Green Eggs and Hamlet