*sigh*

I've thought about this post since I first read it, late this
morning, and I kept having flashbacks to Le Canard a la Pekin. :)

This is a simplistic, short-short piece, and yes, it largely gets
by on the idea alone. I don't deny that, as it was only thought
through far enough to hopefully ellicit a chuckle or two, and if
it didn't, fair enough. (I have little doubt that our senses of
humor are probably somewhat at odds, at least where fanfic is
concerned. :)

Your suggestions for improvement would be appropriate, I think, if
I ever intended to do anything with this other than just toss it
out for those who might enjoy it, but what you've outlined
encompasses a substantially longer and more developed work, which
I'm not interested in pursuing in the case of AWC. The idea of
Akane as a talking bird *is* rather interesting, and if someone
else wants to run with it, be my guest. As it is, it inspired me
only this far.

As far as Akane being cursed character treated as cursed
character, I'm forced to assume that you are speaking of Kasumi
wondering if she should put down newspaper, Nabiki trying to get
Akane to say 'Pieces of Eight', Soun's worry that his
grandchildren will be in eggs, and Shampoo's offer to have Akane
for lunch -- these reactions all seem in-character to me, if a bit
unwittingly or obliquely cruel. Well, Nabiki's was knowingly
cruel, but that's IC, too. :)

That criticism reminds me of Kasumi and Nabiki cornering Ranma and
making 'her' wear girl's clothing simply because all of hers was
in the wash or dirty (I forget which). Why couldn't they have just
put Akane's yellow gi on Ranma until the wash was done? Does Soun
have only one gi, himself? Ranma could have rolled up the sleeves.
It wasn't necessary for the two sisters to take advantage of
Ranma's curse and wound her pride (sorta) by stuffing her into
girl's clothing, even if said girl's clothing was handier than the
other options... or *was* it? I suppose Takahashi had her
reasons... ^_^

As always, thoughtful commentary. Many thanks, Gary.

Yours,
Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Kleppe [mailto:gary@garykleppe.org]
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 6:39 AM
To: D.F. Roeder
Cc: FFML
Subject: Re: [FFML] [Ranma] Akane Wanna Cracker?


*sigh*

Dave, I guess I have to conclude that I just don't get
your sense of
humor, at least as relates to fanfics. Dunno if that
says something
about you, or about me, or if it's just one of those
things. I know
you've been going through a dry spell lately, and I
really don't want to
be discouraging, but....

Akane turning into a talking bird is a weird enough
idea that it's gotta
have some good humor potential in it, but... it seems
like this story is
trying to get by on the idea itself, without making it
*go* anywhere.
There's some good lines of dialog, but IMO it needs to
develop some sort
of logically absurd consequence(s) of Akane being a
bird for it to
really be funny.

For example, you could have people listening to the
bird, unaware that
she's really Akane, assuming that she's repeating
things that Ranma said
while they were in China, resulting in a lot of people
angry at a very
confused Ranma.

This is just an example. It seems to me that there's a
lot of ways you
could get humor out of this. Akane-bird treated as real
bird, Akane-bird
treated as Akane-human being, Akane-human after hot
water still treated
as bird by smartass Ranma, etc. But what you've got
here seems like
cursed character treated as cursed character, which IMO
just isn't all
that funny.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html

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