on 8/25/2000 12:48 PM, Michael Noakes <noakes_m@hotmail.com> wrote:
a suggestion: right now,
there's an amazingly popular woman within the world of Judo tearing up the
Japanese ranks. Can't remember her name, but it shouldn't be hard to find.
She'd make a good poster.
I agree. I'll try to track down her name, but I'll at least make sure to
mention martial arts.
Well, this maybe points at what, for me, might be a recurring minor weakness
in the writing; it's asking me to believe things that are belied by
character actions. Oh, I'm -told- that Ranko is shocked at the idea of
having a boyfriend, at the idea of being a mother, and terrified by the
initial encounter with possibility; but what I -see- is quite the opposite.
She melts into her first kisses, she frequently muses about how nice it
feels to be held - held *protectively*, which is very telling - and while
she offers protests to the idea of getting married so quickly (hey, she -is-
only sixteen!), she doesn't actually protest -marriage-. Sixteen and
already determined to get married and have children?
She gets used to the idea over several chapters, representing a couple of
months of elapsed time.
Why I assign her frail ego to her femininity rather
than to her undermined life, is that the prose assignes other 'feminine'
characteristics to her, en masse. This I haven't actually gone to count,
but it certainly stands out: do you realize Ranko never laughs? She only
giggles, which, for whatever reason, certainly carries a feminine conotation
to it.
I guess I don't understand this. I don't think her frailty has anything to
do with her femininity. If Ranko never laughs, why does the phrase "Ranko
laughed" occur in the story? (it does, you can go check.)
I do admit I overused "giggle". I already had to make one "giggle cleanup"
pass through the story before I published it; it sounds like it's time for
another one. I had the same problem with "wide eyes"; I had to go through
and use more varied descriptions. I have a tendency to get stuck on a
particular phrase sometimes. There's nothing sinister about it. When I think
about teenage girls, I think of giggling. It's just one way of laughing to
me. I giggle sometimes, and I'm, uh, well, not a teenager. I will probably
go through and try to vary the descriptions, though.
I guess I just don't see this theme of extreme femininity that you're
discussing.
but
rather I'm being asked to believe that not only were all those
characteristics false, but that they'd all just slide away within a chapter
or two. Which is much harder to accept.
I don't think this is unrealistic at all, and I guess we're going to have to
agree to disagree. I think people can shuck off an unwanted role very, very
quickly.
The opprotunity was there to do some very serious challenging of gender
roles in general, and maybe of Japanese assumption specifically. But these
are mostly paved over, and Ranko becomes a sadly 'traditional' girl with
remarkable speed. Within a few chapters she giggles, she wears dresses, she
loves shopping, learns makeup, and drops her masculine mode of speech.
Actually, it's the last that bothers me the most. Why? Yes, Ranma switched
back and forth often enough in the manga, but I'm sure Takahashi was playing
that up for comedic (or commentary) effect. But on a day-to-day basis, I
can't see Ranma easily overcoming a decade of intensely-ingrained masculine
vocabulary. More importantly, from a story point of view, it's a great
opportunity to challenge and question these assumptions that a Japanese
woman _should_ use 'watashi', as opposed to 'ore' - and so on...
I don't want this to turn into a big thrash on gender theory, but I don't
agree with this. To me, feminism is not about rejecting femininity, it's
about allowing women to run our lives the way we want, and giving us equal
access to power and opportunity. I think the kinds of things you are talking
about here are surface trappings. It is possible to enjoy being feminine and
run a major corporation at the same time. I enjoy being feminine, and I'm a
manager and senior technical contributor at a large Silicon Valley
corporation.
To me, feminism is about opportunity, not rejecting femininity. Ranko's
pursuing a career instead of becoming a housewife (at least, after she gets
her head straightened out) is the real challenge to Japanese gender roles.
Calling themselves "ore" is not going to help the lot of Japanese women;
getting on the boards of corporations and getting elected to the Diet will.
I guess I don't think the speech thing is a big problem. If I wanted to
speak Japanese as a guy, I think I could remember to use "ore" pretty
quickly.
On Ranma as a hero, I know that is one of his most appealing aspects to some
people. I find that having that as a defining attribute of a character makes
them less human, and thus less interesting -- to me, anyway. They're an
ideal, a symbol, rather than a real, frail human being. I wanted to show
Ranko being human and frail -- not because she's a wimp, but because she's
going through a devastating experience. To me, that doesn't make her a less
interesting person; it makes her more human, more three-dimensional. Ranko
may very well still have the ability to be heroic if required -- it's just
not the focus of *this story*. This story is about something that happens to
Ranma, not about Ranma saving the world. There are more than enough stories
of the latter variety.
To me, the ability to be heroic on occasion is made more precious when you
put it in the context of how difficult it is and how frail we all really
are. If heroism becomes easy, then to me it becomes boring. I didn't like
the way that Ranma's opponents kept upping the ante in the original manga;
it turned him into a god instead of a man.
And so, with those qualities that are maybe more 'shonen' as opposed to
'shojo' - why? I'm not saying you believe woman can't be heroic, or stoic,
or confident, nor that a man can't be sensitive nor caring - but it comes
off a bit like that in the fic. If it's not your intention, it may be
something to look for within your prose.
Not at all. This story is not about heroism in the conventional sense. I
don't believe anyone could be stoic in the face of a crisis like the one she
experiences. I think she is regaining her confidence, and I expect that to
be back to normal eventually (it certainly will be in the sequel I'm
planning). And I think guys can be sensitive: I show sensitivity in Genma
and Ryouga in this story. In fact, most of the guys in this story are
sensitive, except Kunou.
See, whereas you don't have the doubt, I, as a reader, certainly due, owing
largely to what the prose shows me at that moment, and also to what I've
read leading up to that fight. So when Ranma just stands by the sidelines,
heart in throat, I'm disappointed, if not entirely surprised. Mind you,
that's easily fixable: if Ranko's holding back for the reasons you say
above, why not letting the reader see some of that?
I'll look at tweaking that section.
So, worthwhile, certainly, but sadly. . . not interesting. And not because
she's not acting like Ranma, though being bereft of many of the
qualities that -made- him interesting is part of the reason. My criticsm
here isn't a really a character-based one, but rather a writing/plot/drama
based one. I think I even touched on this earlier.
I think this is the heart of our disagreement. I think she's quite
interesting -- but not for the reasons Ranma is. She's different.
It's interesting, several people have talked about the idea that some of the
characters should have had a harder time accepting Ranma's change. I detect
a little of that in this debate we've been having. People like Ranma as he
is -- so do I, for that matter. They don't want him to stop being Ranma,
because they like Ranma. Even if he becomes Ranko, they want Ranko to be
like Ranma. I talked about Ranma dying in the story for a reason: in order
for Ranko to be herself, she had to stop being Ranma, this role she was
playing. That's not to say that that role didn't have many wonderful
qualities. But it's not her. A change like this is going to be painful to
anyone who likes Ranma just the way he is -- including the readers. I can
easily see why it comes across as being anti-Ranma: why'd I go and kill him
off? It's not because I don't like Ranma: it's because change this radical
is painful.
Most of the qualities in Ranma will carry through to Ranko. Some won't. I
would expect her values to remain the same. I would expect the way she
interacts with other people to change drastically, and it does.
You don't have to accept any of this, of course, but this was my thinking
behind this story.
Most importantly, and this seems the most common weakness in Ranma-as-girl
stories (whether forced to adapt, or born that way) what about poor,
often-cheated Akane? You placed your story early, which is good, because
it's hard to deny feelings between the couple by the time the Hiryu Shoten
Ha arc hits; but even before volume ten, there's more than enough evidence:
love pills, Mousse's appearance, Bakusei Tenketsu, Golden Pair -- if not
outright love, there's definitely more there than sisterly affection; and
that's swept under the carpet by chapter two or three. In fact, it seems a
lot of Akane's personality is drained away: again, the rough, violent edges
that make her interesting. She could have been an excellent source of
tension during Ranma's transition to Ranko.
I thought it was possible to explain the devotion between Akane and Ranma as
stemming from their extreme closeness. It's possible that this is stretching
things a bit, but only a bit. There is very, very little in the way of overt
romantic feelings between the two that early. I did look through the first
few volumes for *exactly* that sort of thing. I will freely admit that there
are occasions where Ranma observes that Akane is cute in the manga, and
that's inconsistent with the story I tell. I guess that doesn't bother me;
this is an alternate universe, and it's not *too* much of a stretch to
imagine the story happening the same way, but without that handful of
incidents. Ranma never vocalizes them, after all, and we know this Ranma is
different on the inside than the canon Ranma.
I don't want to pretend that events could be *exactly* like they are in the
manga and be consistent with my story, but I don't think that's necessary
for it to be a Ranma 1/2 story. After all, Ranko 1/2 diverges even more, and
it's definitely a Ranma 1/2 story.
I don't see Akane as being that different in my story. What's very different
is the way she treats Ranma: that changes radically, not because Akane has
changed, but because Ranma has. I think Akane reacts to other people --
Kunou, boys she thinks are jerks, and so on -- about the same as she always
has. I agree with Kasumi and Toufuu: Akane is really a very sweet girl, and
she shows that here.
I wouldn't have expected her to change much at first -
it's such a profound undercutting of everything she knows that I don't think
he'd even be able to comprehend what it entails. With pressure from his
mother, and maybe a few others, maybe a reluctant look into what this could
all mean. Maybe - and this is really, really, tough - maybe eventually
coming to accept what he was born as, and bringing back those memories, and
yes, even coming to think of himself as a female. At the same time - he'd
still be a lot like the old Ranma.
I really differ here. It's ignoring an important point: this Ranma *wants*
to be a girl, has never liked being a guy. You're describing the canon Ranma
who, I believe, would never, ever become a girl voluntarily, no matter what
he was when he was born or what his mother wants.
I started to write a painfully long and involved analysis of Ranko's
psychology as Ranma here, but I actually doubt anyone would be interested. I
think it's enough to say that I find Ranko's psychology to be perfectly
believable, and you don't, and let's leave it at that and save everyone here
on the FFML some bandwidth. Goodness knows we've been chewing up enough of
it already...
Crying: maybe tone it down a little? Seriously, reading through enough
chapters in series, it's impossible to not develop an annoying impression of
Ranko; even Nabiki seems to, later in the story. She cries... _a lot_.
Akane sweeps out her legs? She cries. Gets insulted? She cries. She's
almost, if not worse, than anime-stykle Soun.
Again, I think she's understandably fragile, but I'll go over it and see if
there are places it makes sense to tone it down.
Japanese: why? This is a common complain, I guess, but I really can't
understand why it's used in English fanfiction. Food and places, sure, but
with a few other exceptions, it's seems pointless, just a pump in a sentence
that can only jog a large number of readers.
I liked the use of Japanese when I started this story, because I just love
the language. I still love the language, but I'll be cutting way back on use
of Japanese in my next story. It sounds great to me, but it confuses too
many readers.
Dramatic tension: this is probably really hard to change, since it underlies
the entire story as you've written it, but the fic could use more. By
chapter three, maybe fve at the latest, I don't have a doubt as to how this
story is going to end. Heck, the girls at the beach are even nodding
knowingly, they know how the story is going to end. And when you have no
doubt of the ending of a story less than a third of the way in, you need
something else to keep the interest; maybe a fascinating main character can
do it, but Ranko, even during recovery, just isn't strong enough (in my
opinon) to be it.
I didn't want the dramatic tension to be based on the question of whether
she was going to become Ranko again; I wanted it to be based on her internal
journey.
Inter-character tension: too many people are just too nice. Leave some
abrasive edges, lets get some anger, let see someone draw the fire out of
Ranko. Other than a few two-dimensional Furinkan boys shouting insults
(and, really, is there any really developped men in this story?), everybody
just seems slightly pablumated.
I believe that the kind of internal tension a character experiences in a
situation like this is very quiet, and can easily be drowned out by more
obvious, external tension. I wanted this story to focus on Ranko's internal
journey and her feelings, not conflicts with other people. I know that may
make it less appealing for some readers.
One of the writers whose work I enjoy the most is Jane Austen, and her style
influenced me quite a bit. I know lots of people can't stand Jane Austen,
and there's nothing wrong with that; she isn't for everybody. I'm certainly
no Jane Austen, but I think that some people may not be able to stand
"Genma's Daughter" for similar reasons.
"Genma's Daughter" is the story I wanted to write, and I'm glad that at
least *some* people like it. That's pretty neat to my mind, and a lot better
than I was expecting when I started.
Thank you for the C&C amidst all the debate; I appreciate it, and will try
to apply it.
Deborah