Boy has this story stirred up the FFML...  I guess I'll have to throw in my $0.02 at this point...


----Original Message Follows----
From: allyn yonge <ayonge@yahoo.com>
To: "Miller, Bert" <bert.miller@unisys.com>, 'Knight Writer' <Jedediah@tri-countynet.net>, ffml@fanfic.com
Subject: [FFML] Re: [FIC][R.5] The Akane Factor 1 of 2
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 15:33:12 -0700 (PDT)


--- "Miller, Bert" <bert.miller@unisys.com> wrote:

Reasonably good story in and of itself.
Unfortunately,
your choice to make this a _Ranma_ story, as opposed
to,
say, a Maison Ikkoku story, is really fatal to
getting your
readers to suspend any disbelief at all.

@@ Ummmm, I don't think the series has much
to do with suspension of disbelief. Ranma is full
of magical artifacts, demi-gods, demons, etc. Mutants
would, IMO, fit easily.

The "problem" IMO is not sufficient detail. However
this is MY opinion. Some readers may find a MI story
with
mutants easier to believe while other readers (myself
for one)
might not be able to get past the first paragraph of
the story. IMO, it is ENTIRELY up to the author to
decide this sort of thing.

***I agree that it is entirely up to the author to decide what he wants to use to makeup the alt/x-over story.  If he feels that Ranma and Marvel would make an interesting match, who are we to tell him that it's wrong and he shouldn't do it?  It's his story and his imagination.  HOWEVER...

***This mixing of Ranma and the Marvel universe will require special handling.  WHy do the Amazon's what Ranma?  Good warrior makes for good breeding stock that will strengthen the tribe.  As I have seen mentioned during this debate the Ranma universe could quailify as mutant.  Well, in a way I guess I could agree.  That is the problem with the mix IMO.  In the real world not just anyone could become another Bruce Lee.  In the Ranma universe not just anyone can become Ranma, or even Ryouga.  Ranma is supposed to be one of, if not the best martial artists of his generation.  Well all know that studies have been done about differences in muscle fibers in track atheles and "average" people.  Ranma is not a "normal" person.  He was more than likely born with the *potential* to become what he is, and all the trainning that he endures combined with that is what made him in to a great martial artist.  So.. coming back from that tangent...what about this alternate universe?  Akane couldn't be the only mutant among the Ranma crew. That is generally what I am trying to come to.  They'd all have to be to some degree.  Else how do you explain Saffron?  Cologne at her age being able to move with her skill and cunning?

More on this after the point-by-point.

>         Another day, another yen. Akane rose from
her bed,

Odd thing to occur to Akane.  Some of your readers
are going
to be misled into thinking this is an alterverse
where Akane
has Nabiki's personality.

@@I've got to admit I thought it was a _little_
strange. However not _so_ strange as to be
unbelievable.

***I don't think it was meant as a Nabkiki-ism.  More like the feeling of "another day another dollar," namely you've gotta get up join the rat race and do it all over again...and you'd rather just stay in bed.

<SNIP>

Given what we learn this is, the question arises as
to why so
late in Akane's life?  She's sixteen; isn't this
supposed to
happen to fourteen-year-olds?

@@Ummm, I assume this is a reference to "Marvel
Universe" mutants? Even if true, I'm not sure this is
relevant. This is, after all, neither the original
Marvel nor Ranma universe. The "change" can come at
sixteen or sixty if the author wishes.

***agreed.

<SNIP>
<clip>
>         "FREAK!"

Well, I have to agree with Jason Liao on this.  Why
didn't
these same students suspect Ranma, Ryouga, Kodachi,
and
Shampoo of being mutants?  Well, maybe they did, but
we're
not told so.

This reaction just doesn't work, given what we KNOW
these
students have already accepted.  In particular,
there is
NO reason for the students to suspect, from this
evidence,
that Akane is a mutant as opposed to:  1) affected
by a
new Jusenkyou curse, or 2) come into possession of
some
legendary artifact, or for that matter Chinese
commercial
good, or 3) possessed by an oni or other spirit.

@@Good point. Workable however if the author provides
more back-story to build the anti-mutant feeling AND
show Akane's progression toward her powers. And, as GK
suggested, perhaps some way to identify mutants. I
rather like eye colour but there are other traits that
could be used.

***I agree with the original post.  Not workable.  We are being dropped into the Ranma universe well into things... we aren't having a total alternate universe retold from their childhood or even from when Ranma and Akane first meet.  That makes the difference here.  IF you are going to pick up at such a later point in time, certain things are established...namely all the cannon Ranma that preceedes the author's story.  It IS workable if he starts earlier before the series begins or during the first couple espisodes and changes the universe from that point on.

>         Nabiki watched as the paramedics loaded
Ranma into
> the waiting ambulance, unable to believe what her
eyes and
> ears were conveying to her brain.

"He's not dead yet!"

Paramedic produces mallet and hammers Ranma.

@@ He's dead Jim.

***This scene.  Doesn't seem right.  Ranma can get throw into walls at high velocities, hit with chi, and still get up and fight.  I don't think that electrocution would stop his so easily.  Slow him down, knock him out, but put him in the hospital...no.

> then how could it have happened? Static
electricity didn't
> have anywhere near that kind of power.

Nabiki wouldn't waste time trying to figure out how.
 She'd
be confident that someone would show up to explain
it within
the day.

@@Seems perfectly natural reaction to me. I know that
_I_ try to figure out how/why things happen. I don't
see this as particularly strange or OOC.

***Seema fine to me too.

> But there was none, and Nabiki knew it. Akane; her
youngest
> sister, the one she used to call "Baby"... was
a... mutant.
>
>         Nabiki fought against the urge to collapse
into tears,
> barely maintaining her cool facade.

All right, who are you and what have you done with
the real
Nabiki?  We know perfectly well that the REAL Nabiki
would be
planning how to make money from this revelation!

@@^_^ Well, this IS an alt-universe. (just wait �till
you see what I just did to Nabiki.)

***But it is a LATE alt-universe.  He has to work completely with in the confines of cannon Ranma unless he has some impetus that causes them to change.  Game set match.  Thank you.

> Thought and emotion swirled around a central
truth, one that
> she desperately sought and shied away from all at
once.

Even in the Marvel-verse, there are LOTS of
alternate
explanations available for an occurence like this:
visiting
aliens gave her powers, she was bitten by a
radioactive
electric eel, etc, etc.  In the Ranma-verse there
are a near-
infinite number of possible explanations.  Why is
everyone
leaping to the same single conclusion, without even
going
to Dr. Tofu for any tests?

@@Good point. (well this isn't Marvel so I'm not so
sure about the radioactive spiders, etc) Again, this
is reason for more back-story to make this more
reasonable.

***Agreed.

>         She was a mutant. She had powers like
other mutants,
> powers that martial arts training could never
bestow.

BTW, you've yet to demonstrate this.  Post-vol-38
Ranma
could probably duplicate this feat exactly.  For
that matter,
he might be able to anytime after his "soul of ice"
training.

@@Well, lets give him time. I think he's demonstrated
that Akane's power is reasonably potent. She just
KO'ed Ranma w/o breaking a sweat after all.

***I don't demolish his idea, but I agree that post Vol. 38 Ranma, and other characters as well are pretty damn powerful.

>         However, that whole Jusenkyou bit was
something he'd
> have to see before he'd ever believe it.

Now you're making a point of the Ranmaverse having
more
strange things in it than your mutants expect.  This
goes
against your entire effort to persuade us that being
a
mutant is "different".

@@Why so? A "mutation" (even if the Marvel mutations
have NO relationship to Mendel) is "science" while
Jusenkyou is "magic".  I believe in quantum mechanics.
I do NOT believe in witchcraft. (even if quantum
theory/effect often seems like magic.)
Isao IS a mutant. It's easy for him to believe in
that. He's experienced it.
I can cite a great many things that orthodox science
did not believe that later turned out to be true.
(rocks falling from the sky= meteors) or vice versa.

***Maybe.  Maybe not... maybe there is science to explain Jusenkyou, but we just don't know it yet.  Things that man hasn'T understand have been called magic many times.  So I am not sure that your explanation works for why it is ok that Isao is surprised over Jusenkyou.  Many things in the Marvel universe border on magic...though are explained through "pretend" science.

<SNIP>
It would be just as Japanese to accept mutants
completely,
but simply to politely never talk about them in
public.
You might want to pick up a copy of Karen Smyer's
"The Fox and
the Jewel" for more on this:  in some things, a
superficial
homogeneity conceals a lot of diversity, simply
because
the Japanese never talk to each other enough to
know.

@@Good point.  OTOH, just look at he way the Japanese
treat gaijin. (The human rights commission has some
interesting things to say. They equate the Japanese
treatment to non-Japanese to "Third World" treatment.
Beatings, robbery, murder, etc.)

***WHAT?  What do you call acceptance?  That they allow their mere existence?  Bah!  The Japanese would shun them like the plague.  Ever hear of the eta/burakumin?  Were butchers, leather tanners, etc....anything deemed dirty by Shinto (meaning involving blood, dirt...) and considered so low as to not even be part of the feudal caste system.  Their descendants today are still discriminated against in jobs and marriage.  Foreigners in Japan accepted?  They are refused entrance into onsens and some small shops. Housing is HARD to get...who wants to rent to an unknown?  There have been foreigners who have sublet a sublet apartment, not paid their bills, ripped up their apartments, cooked "odd smelling" foods, can't possibly speak Japanese since they aren't Japanese....these are the usual arguements.  Japanese people do the same things as well, of course, but the difference is that from when they are young Japanese children are told not to talk to foreigners, they are taught that foreigners are different and that all the Japanese are the same.  Now try and overcome that scenario.  No sorry.  I would never say accpeted.  Tolerated...now that is a different thing.  Foreigners are tolerated in Japan.

To conclude:  your premise seems badly flawed to me.
 The
readers on this list are not, IMO, going to be able
to
believe in your premise sufficiently to keep reading
your
story.

@@Ummm, well, _some_ readers. I'm a reader and I
accept the premise. I _DO_ think there should be a lot
more back story. But then I'm a sucker for detail. And
some readers may prefer the story just as it is, while
other readers will never like it.

***I'm a a reader and I accpet the premise, but I think it needs more work...more definition.  Ranma/Marvel works, but maybe not like it has begun.  If it is taken back to the beginning of the series and starts as a total alt-universe I think there would be less criticism of it than we have seen.  The problem, as I see it, is that with it taking place so late that characterizations are already set.  I know that vol. 5 and 6 is still early on, but I feel that this story would have less problems as a 100% alt-universe, rather than divergent from Ranma-universe somewhere later on.

J
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