FYI, my email host has been down for a hardware upgrade since last
night. If anyone's sent me email since then, you may want to re-send.

DB, I appreciate your speaking your mind on this. As I've said many
times, I welcome any and all honest feedback, and while I don't find
myself convinced by your arguments -- in fact, I'm rather mystified by
some of them -- I'm glad you decided to air them.

Hey! Gary's written a fic. You know what the first thing that went through
my mind was? I wonder if Ukyou's going to end up the butt of his jokes
again. Let's find out.

<DB reads fic>

Wow! It was! What a surprise! Now the question you should be asking yourself
is, exactly how was it I was able to guess it without reading a word? The

You saw some of the other C&C first, maybe?

Out of curiosity, did you start with the same expectations reading Ghost
Prison? Puppy Love? HaM 5? Vampire in Nerima? For A Dying Friend? If
not, why was this one different?

title doesn't give it away. I swear to you I didn't read ahead. Could it be
because you've been doing this incessantly since after Justice? (Which was a
damn fine fic and lacked the sort of ranting you've been engaged in ever
since) The truth is, Gary, a large quantity of the Ranma material you've
been writing reads like little more than a personal crusade against 'Ukyou
fanboys', who seem to have honked you off so badly. It's affected your
writing, and in an entirely negative way. Hell, even Colleen Morgan knew
what Tenshi was and called it 'Gary v. Ukyo round 3! ;)', though I would
contend it's gone a heck of a lot more rounds than that.

I interpreted Colleen's remark as a tongue-in-cheek sop to the way in
which certain readers would inevitably view this story; something like
the list moderators referring to themselves (er, make that ourselves
^_^) as tyrannical sadistic overlords. Granted, I could be wrong. I
can't speak for Colleen -- but neither can you.

Maybe you think you're just arguing about something you feel passionate
about, but don't kid yourself, it went beyond that with that monotonous
Ukyou dog 'gag' which grew tired after the second reference, but which you
continued to beat to death long afterwards by refering to it every
opportunity you could. And you haven't gotten any better since then. I
haven't bothered mentioning this before simply because I figured you'd get
tired of it and get back to writing stories rather than ranting and trying
to irritate a certain group of people, but evidently it's something you
never grow tired of. But I have. Maybe I'm the only one. Maybe I'm just
paranoid and I've misinterpeted nearly every Ranma thing you've written
lately that has Ukyou in it for more than two seconds as little more than
attempts to vent and see if you can get some 'fanboys' riled up. But I don't
think so.

In an attempt to answer this with something more than an "Is not!" I
went back through the fics I've posted since "Justice" -- a period of a
little less than three years -- and took score: For each fic, or
spamfic, or chapter, I identified the character who more than any other
was the butt of the humor or otherwise got the short end of the stick.

Indeed, there was a clear winner: Ranma, who beat out number two Ukyo by
a margin of two to one. Ranma took four out of five chapters of "I Dream
of" (Tofu beat him out for the fifth), a one-shot, and a spamfic,
whereas Ukyo took a spamfic, this story, and another one-shot.

Now, what should we conclude from this? Well, you tell me. You may, of
course, want to take issue with my determinations here, but to do so
you'll have to offer specific complaints, something you've yet to do.

I'll also pose the question here of whether it's necessarily a bad thing
if the butt of a story's jokes *is* predictable. If you picked any
random chapter of the canon, Ranma getting the short end of the stick is
a pretty safe bet; if you picked a random chapter of UY, Ataru getting
it is pretty nearly a sure thing, at least for the earlier portions of
the series that I've read. I don't know about you, but knowing this did
nothing to diminish my enjoyment of either of these series.

Don't get me wrong. You aren't the only one to feel like this. I won't deny
there have been many times I've felt like you and found some annoyingly
stupid fanfic convention I've wanted to skewer repeatedly through a fanfic
or two dozen, but you know what? I stop myself and look at what it is I've
really written or was considering writing. Is it a story, or just a rant I'm
trying to disguise?  I will give you credit in that you were open about what
you were trying to do here in Tenshi by skewering a fanfic convention, and
if you hadn't been doing it for years now it probably would have been all
right, (I confess to taking a handful of jabs at several conventions here
and there) but this is territory you've gone over many, many times, and
frankly Tenshi comes off as little more than yet another rant by you rather
than anything like an actual story you're trying to tell.

I understand that a story turning into a rant is bad; what I don't
understand is what makes you think that that happened in this case.

"Cave of Lost Love" had Ukyo plotting to split up Ranma and Akane in
much the same way this one did, and her plans backfired in much the same
way as well. Was that also not a story in your eyes, or was there some
crucial difference, and if so, what was it?

So here's where I say something that might actually be 'useful' though
whether it is or not is up to you to decide. The next time you want to write
a fic where Ukyou ends up the butt of your joke, like Tenshi, try resisting
the urge.

Why? What makes Ukyo as the butt of jokes any worse than Ranma (for
example) in that role? Or if that's not what you're saying, and I expect
it probably isn't, then, well, what *are* you saying?

If you have something where she has a reduced role, you might want
to consider leaving her out of the fic altogether. Takahashi frequently left
characters absent with no explanations, so it's not like it hasn't been done
before.

Look, give me a LITTLE credit here. :P  I don't stick secondary
characters into a fic just out of obligation. Ukyo did not appear in the
latest HaM, and will not appear in the one-shot I'm currently writing,
"The Master's Underthings" -- and my pre-readers can attest to the fact
that I didn't write her out just now because of this discussion. But
neither do I feel the need to write out a character just because I'm
getting complaints about her treatment. (If people can JUSTIFY those
complaints, that's another matter. You may well be able to do so, but
you haven't yet.)

I don't like doing this, giving little more than unilateral, blunt, negative
commentary. In fact I downright hate it, which is why I so rarely engage in
it. I honestly prefer using what little time I have to give more helpful C+C
that won't end up getting tossed because it's not positive criticism. But
you used to be so much better than this that I feel compelled to say
something on the offhand chance you might listen and at least consider what
I've said. The only reason I'm publically posting it at all is it might do
others (including myself) good to look at our works and make sure we're not
engaging in this behavior as well.

I don't mind your doing it at all. And IMO, anybody who tosses feedback
because it isn't positive doesn't deserve any feedback at all. I'm
trying to understand your position here, really, but I don't think I can
unless you can explain *why* you had the problem you did with this
story.

If I were to name some things that in my eyes make the difference
between a bash story and one that just makes a character look bad,
they'd probably be:

1) Does the character have understandable motivations for what he or she
does?

2) Does the story attempt to evoke a certain amount of sympathy for the
character?

3) Does the story go out of its way to make the character look bad, i.e.
do so in a way that doesn't contribute to conflict, drama, humor, the
plot, etc?

4) Does the fanfic invent faults, crimes, etc. for the character that
he/she never had in the canon? Eliminate redeeming characteristics that
the character had in the canon? Do characters in the fanfic who were
positive or neutral toward the character in canon take a dislike toward
him or her in the fic for no apparent or no good reason?

I dunno if this is anything like what *you* would list, which obviously
your own reactions are going to be based on, but maybe it'll at least
give some framework for discussion.

Again, though I'm not (yet) convinced to agree, I *do* appreciate your
telling me what you think. If any of this reply seems intemperate, I
apologize in advance.


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

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