FWIW, most of those scenes are also in the anime. But I agree with your
point here. The anime hair colors are rather obviously an artifact of
the graphic style, and my suspension of belief always goes down a notch
or two when I see them described in a prose story, much as if someone
were to refer to Ranma as "the girl with abnormally large eyeballs."

Heh... I'd not thought of it like that before =)

I strongly suggest you keep your pronoun usage consistent, or at least
don't mix pronoun schemes in the same scene. There is not a distinct
wall in prose between physical actions and the characters' thoughts and
feelings; as in reality, they are often intertwined together. IMO, "he"
is appropriate when you're going for a highly POV-personalized, cerebral
narrative, which is what I tend to favor, whereas "she" works better for
a more cinematic just-the-facts-ma'am viewpoint. But take it from
someone who's read a *lot* of fanfics, switching back and forth in the
same scene is just going to be confusing.

In this case, I'd definitely support the author's choice of "he", since
it shows that the female half of the split Ranma still has the same
mind, still thinks of himself the same way he always did -- something
that is obviously quite important to the conflicts in the story.

I use a heuristic algorithm for detirmining the most appropriate pronoun... that is to say, I write what _sounds_ _right_ at the time, then I come back to it later and make sure it still sounds right.
Unfortunately, this has left me with the inability to describe exactly under what circumstances I would choose one or the other, but as the subject is just a little complicated, it's probably folly to try.

I'm happy to leave this to author discretion, but it's just that I think blanket male pronoun usage is a little... indiscreet.

Anyhow. Each to their own.

(*sigh* - the trials of being a Discordian...)

Ja ne,
-Alex T




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