First off, I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this
piece of work. It was very insightful and like what some have
said, it gave a bit of an emotional impact.

The piece in general gives us a glimpse into the well of talent
Mr. Nicholas Leifker has in being able to flesh out a 2-dimensional
character in a way that is realistic and empathetic. I commend
you and your work.

Now comes the part where I put in my two cents worth about this
whole "villainization" issue. Color me naive but after reading all
the posts regarding this issue, Mr. Leifker still does not strike
me as someone who is petty and who would therefore use a character
like Shampoo and deliberately malign her. To my knowledge, that
kind of maliciousness is actually quite rare. Besides, what would
he gain by doing that except earn the ire of people like DB Sommer.

My point is this: as an occasional writer of fanfic myself, I find
that it is easy to take a character that has been portrayed as a
villain in so many fics and even parts of the canon and then take
it to the extreme. I'm writing a Ranma fic and I need an antagonist,
bam, easy, why not use Shampoo?

If I did come up with such a fic, based on the reaction I saw on
this list, I would be lambasted as well. But I wouldn't deserve it
since I did not use Shampoo because I hated her or I wished to
annoy Shampoo fanboys (or girls, for that matter). It was simply
convenient to use her, a path of least resistence so to speak.

I would like to urge the C&Cers of the list, therefore, to take
the time to be more diplomatic. It doesn't cost a thing and is
quite easy to do. It would also be beneficial to all to give the
author the benefit of the doubt and not automatically assume the
worse.

Lastly, I believe that the reason why we even expose our work on
FFML and provide C&C on the work of others is to help each other
improve. I believe the FFML is a place where we can encourage
writers *with talent* to become better. This whole bruhaha about
villainization does nothing to improve someone's writing ability.

That's it.

-- TR Ancheta (who is praying he never gets flamed for this)

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