Here's another "essence of" reply, by example.

There's a game series whose name translates to "Super Robot Wars". It's had 
umpty-one installments and is still going. Not unlike this story, it's a 
megacrossover. Gundams fight beside Valkyries fight beside Leos fight beside 
Evas fight beside series-original creations. The difference is that it 
treats each continuity as a separate continuity, and their presence in other 
continuities as dimension-hopping and forced timeline merger, not unlike the 
DC Crisis On Infinite Earths and suchlike comic series. The big advantage 
this gives is to allow the characters from different continuities to retain 
their unsullied backstories and personalities, letting interactions light 
off the differences and similarities between not only characters, but their
respective universes. So philosophies are compared, threats are met with
uniquely unified fronts, idiosyncracies are held up for inspection and, at 
times, laughter (Nadesico's giant mecha fanboys on seeing Gundams,
f'rexample) and giant robots get to blow each other to smithereens. It's all 
good.

Trying to create a shared continuity, on the other hand, is chock-full of 
nightmares and backstory snarls, because creators don't work off a shared 
vision of the world's history. If Sailor Moon, Tenchi, Urusei Yatsura, and 
Ah! My Goddess all coexist, then Earth is both a protectorate of the Jurai 
and guarded against external threats by the Outer Senshi. How did the "tag 
race" that kicks off UY come to pass with both these in place, and why are 
there still aliens running around doing property damage? Where are the 
Senshi protectors of the other planets implied by the Galaxia arc of Sailor 
Moon, and what action are Uru and Jurai taking against Galaxia as she cuts a 
swath of destruction across the universe? For that matter, Pharoah 90 is 
currently making contact with an Earth agent - what are the Jurai doing 
about it? Can Lum or the Uru dreadnought pick it up? Would Kami-sama be 
dispatching a "wet ops" team to Mugen Gakuen?

***All good questions, but all of them are also outside the scope of the 
present story.  Answering some of them would require an epic fifty times the 
size of Undocumented Features.

Yes, those holes will exist.  I can't fill all of them, and any attempt to 
would lead me so far out of my story I'd never find my way back to it.  I do 
have plans for what I have.  I will have to work out some of those holes to 
make my plans work, which is one of the reasons I've requested input.

I'm glad it's at least interested you enough to analyse it this far.***


Problems exist also with making Card Captor Sakura contemporaneous with
other continuities, either as an anime series or as an actual series of
events - as an anime series, it was made well after Sailor Moon or Ranma, 
and as an _actual_ series of events, you have some major conflicts with 
Sailor Moon. Clow Cards and the Cardian mechanic are somewhat similar, so 
wouldn't one series' characters have picked up the other by now? And one of 
the guardians set in place _for_ the Clow Cards taps the power of the moon, 
not unlike Usagi, so would someone have picked _that_ up?

Fine details, maybe. Nitpicks, maybe. But you build a story out of details.

***Exactly, and quite a few of those nitpicks will be addressed, just not 
all.***

What you build when you don't have details is an outline.

The reason I suggested Ranma 1/2 continuity on its own is that it focuses on 
exploration and location-based storytelling to a degree that many of the 
other series you've included really don't. Sailor Moon takes place largely 
in Juuban, with an outing in the country perhaps a couple of times per 
season, often not even that. Even then, the story tends to focus on the  
same old enemy that's coincidentally come to the new location. The _sole_ 
exception is Sailor Moon purifying a vengeful spirit on a trip in the first 
season. Tenchi stays at the Masaki residence (or in Tokyo, in later seasons) 
and stuff happens there; his trips into space usually follow some villain or 
other. Ataru stays primarily in Tomobiki and Lum and her friends come to 
visit and wreak havoc. I can't speak much for AMG, but from what I 
understand it's also got a fairly narrow focus.

Ranma is unique among the series you have going in that there's a lot of
wandering around Japan - and China, but much of _that_ is plot-motivated - 
but there are elements of every journey that aren't specifically motivated 
by the villain, and the scenery plays more of a role than something to be 
destroyed. I hesitate to say it full-heartedly, but Zhu Shu and a decentpart 
of her mythos we've seen so far fit Ranma 1/2 much better than they fit any 
of the other series you're trying to meld in, simply because powerful 
martial artists from remote regions have shown up in the Ranma canon and the 
canon has stretched to accomodate them. And even in the Ranma canon she's a 
bit of a square peg in a round hole - many of the personal relationships 
_in_ Ranma canon are founded on alliances in battle or situations where 
characters have helped each other with their problems. As I said in my last 
C&C, it seems like Zhu's end of this is one-sided; there's plenty she can do
for the canon characters, but nothing they can do for her.

***At present. No, Ranma and crew, or even the Senshi, are not up to taking 
on Xi'an Chi right now, anymore than Ranma could have taken on Saffron the 
day he arrived at the Dojo.  That changes as the story grows.

I suppose the biggest thing is that I have so much written, and still have 
so much left to write.  If I ever do finish this thing, it's likely going to 
be longer than an encyclopedia.  Many of those questions will eventually be 
answered, just haven't been yet.***


But that aside, the thrust of what I'm getting at is this: Ranma 1/2 hasn't 
canonically dealt with magical girls, space aliens, or the caliber of 
spiritual power AMG characters wield. (It _has_ dealt with many elements of 
Shinto mythology like vengeful ghosts and guardian spirits.) Sailor Moon 
hasn't canonically dealt with AMG-style divine power (Usagi is the 
"messiah", perhaps, of the S season and there _are_ Shinto elements) or 
martial arists of Ranma's caliber (though there are characters who practice 
ordinary martial arts) - it _has_ dealt with space aliens, mostly in 
antagonistic terms, and the in-place mechanisms seem to clash with UY 
backstory. AMG, as far as I know, hasn't canonically dealt with magical 
girls, high-powered martial artists, _or_ space aliens. UY, as far as I 
know, hasn't dealt with magical girls or AMG-class divine power (though 
Shinto shows up again) but has dealt to some extent with high-powered 
martial artists.

Trying to write a story that incorporates space aliens, AMG-strength divine 
power (not just Shinto mysticism), magical girls, _and_ high-powered martial 
artists thus necessitates a _whole lot_ of catchup work for _all_ the 
continuities involved, and no small amount of backfilling, timelining, 
butterfly effect allowance, and other stuff like that there. I would venture 
to say that as they exist it's impossible to harmoniously meld all four 
series. One of the other reasons why Super Robot Wars works is that _all_ 
the continuities have something in common - there are giant robots, and they 
fight, and those fights are a major means of plot progression for all 
continuities involved.


***Yes, if I was seriously concerned with creating a fully realized and 
entirely consistant universe.  There will be some inconsistancies.  I'm just 
trying to patch the most glaringly obvious, and create a good story.***

Zhu Shu seems to fit "high-powered martial artist" better than the other
three categories, and it seems that her story at this stage requires some 
amount of Shinto mysticism to resolve. As such, she fits Ranma 1/2 fairly 
well, better than the other series you have involved, and Ranma 1/2 fits 
_her_ fairly well, _also_ better than the other series you have involved. 
Why use the other three? Why does the story require space aliens, magical 
girls, and metaconcepted Norse deities?

***suffice it to say that at the moment I do have a over all plan.***

Maybe I'm being stupid here. Maybe I've read so much stuff that I'm
overanalyzing - in fact, just _writing_ this has drawn a depth of analysis 
out of me that I don't think has come to the forefront before. I suppose I 
should thank you for that. If you want to go public with this, please do so 
as long as the whole thing remains intact - I imagine other people are going 
to have something to say about my examples. And I _know_ you've said that 
this story has its own set of fans; I'm certainly not begrudging them their 
enjoyment. The story just doesn't work for me, and for whatever reason 
(perhaps because I feel myself getting a better understanding of my own 
tastes) I consider it worth my time to tell you why.


***Glad you consider it so.

My wonder is the number of people who have analysed it this way.  I have no 
way of telling if Shampoo 1/2 , A Tale of Two Wallets, or any of the other 
mega crossover fics I've read had this level of analysis, or if there's 
something unique about mine, but it's encouraging to see that people care 
enough about the work to raise questions and possibly improve it.***

***And since you gave permission, I'd like to see what other commentary may 
be made.***

LSMcGill




_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com


             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'