Deborah Goldsmith wrote:
on 3/17/2000 8:27 AM, Thomas Hood <thood@hotmail.com> wrote:
Well! This fic certainly is spawning its own huge amount of C&C. I
feel compelled to add my two cents worth.
And I appreciate it.
Ranma 1/2 is all about immature kids challenging each other to insane
combat and wreaking havoc and mass destruction upon the prefecture of
Nerima. It's slapstick comedy, gender-bending humor, pokes at gender
stereotypes/roles, I could go on. I'm not saying it's WRONG to deviate
from this, I'm just saying you have to add something to compensate for
the lack. You have a certain degree of internal conflict with Ranko,
but it's resolved very quickly and there's no brooding or resentment
or major identity crises.
Well, clearly this is a major deviation. I couldn't possibly write something
in the flavor of the original; I don't have it in me as an author. It's not
my style. The first thing I did was make it serious, and that pretty much
puts the original premise out the window.
I don't think Ranko's internal conflict is resolved at all. I think it's
obvious I'm not making that clear enough.
I personally don't find brooding appealing in fiction. I prefer to show
people having problems by showing how it affects their everyday life. That's
what I'm trying to do here.
Ranko is definitely still having problems. She doesn't know what she wants
to do with her life, she's nervous about having a romantic involvement with
a boy, and her self-confidence is shot.
The first two things aren't really noticeable just because it's a rare
teenager who doesn't have those problems. Her lukewarm
commitment to martial arts pretty clearly indicates that she's
going to go the violinist route. Perhaps worse is that how easily the
external problems that arise are resolved. By rights the girls should
be dividing up into pro- and anti- Ranko factions and there would always
be some girls who would refuse to see her as anything except a freak and
a pervert.
It bothers me that it turns out that Ranma had little real competitive
drive just because he was a girl. How could he have gotten so good
without any personal investment? The desire to please one's parental
unit only goes so far. If not being competitive is inherent in being a
girl, what is Akane's malfunction?
I'm not especially thrilled by the idea that Ranma's curse is
responsible for the Nerima weirdness either. The principal was shaving
heads at school well before he arrived, and every jock in school was
trying to half kill Akane so they could date the other half.