This is a key problem with this scene... that noone
seemed to be in the same
room with anoyone else, able to see or notice what
the other people in the
scene were acting like or how they were emotionally
expressing themselves...
see below for what I mean.

Of course the problem with writing from a single
character's POV is that they are not all seeing, nor
do they pay attention to every single detail.

Of course, it helps if you pay attention instead of
skimming the writing.

Lets examine the scene carefully.

This would be a first.

Ranma has returned to the Tendo home amidst the
fathers celebrating over
money. Ignoring for the moment that Nabiki would
have been more interested
in finding out where the money came from than the
money itself (information
on where the cash came from would have likely been
priority numero uno for
her, because where some money came from... more
might be able to be gotten)

Ignoring for the moment I am not using "Super Genius
Yakuza" fannon Nabiki....

we have Ranma find the note about Hina-obachan's
death. Now, in the scene we
have Nabs and Akane arguing a bit over the marriage
stuff, with the typical
"Ranma is an idiot, the other fiancee's can have him
for all I care" stuff
coming from Akane. We have a coment from her clearly
stating that Akane is
looking right at him.(For him to stop staring and
say something)

Ah, the staring bit was my fault, I forgot to fix that
bit. it should have been "Stop standing there, Ranma."


 So, Akane

has had plenty of time to do the visual look over of
him, and she would have
seen how his eyes are filling up with tears and make
note of the letter in
his hands as well as his physical responce to it.

What she sees and what she perceives are two different
things.

Whether it was shock,
anger, or the more likely great emotional pain and
distress, it would have
been clearly painted on his face, because no matter
how you slice it, Ranma
does not hide his emotional state well at all.

*Cough* Soul of Ice, *cough*.

(Consider the whole Gambler
King storyline, this established it as fact, not
opinion, that he doesn't
hide his emotions well.)

*Cough* Soul of Ice *cough*.

When money shows up (likely the whole thing would
have come from either a
lawyers office, or from the Hina family forwarding
him the letter)

You do realize that its fairly easy and common to hide
the actual home address....ever heard of P.O. boxes?

unexpectedly from a lawyer or a relative... there's
almost never good news
attached (unless it's a birthday or special gift) It
wouldn't take Akane
having to be a rocket scientist for her to be able
to do the mental math.

*cough* dowries *cough*

Ranma, plus unexpected money, plus him tearing up
right there in front of
everyone, plus a letter clutched in his hand clearly
equals distressed
ranma. Also, please note, as I said previously, in
the manga and the anime
it's clear that Ranma does not hide his emotional
states, he's just not a
stoic individual
Given all that, Akane has frequently shown in the
manga that, while
judgemental of Ranma, she is very much a person
given to and capable of
sympathy for others (unless they are trying to date
her by beating her up).

Or if she misinterprets the facts of matter.

Therefore I state that she would have noticed his
physical reaction to the
distress caused by the letter since she was looking
right at him at the
time. (Again, note her comments dirrected right at
him, it's clear that she
has noticed that he was staring off into space for
some time, so hence she
MUST have been looking at him) 

Addressed above.

Plus, by this point

in the manga (after the
S.S.H and before Ranma's mother shows up) she has
had to endure her father's
and Genma's antics regarding her and Ranma already,
so in my opinion, saying
that the threat of impending marriage preoccupied
her is not a valid
arguement.

And in my opinion, she's annoyed enough at Genma and
Soun to not feel very empathic at the time.

Now, as to the presupposition of Ranma being used to
fill Keitaro's role,
well... lets examine the facts here as well. The
other residents of the
Hinatasou are all there... except Kei.... Somehow I
don't think Ranma is
there to fill Motoko's, or Shinobu's place in the
Hina universe. It stands
to reason therefore that with Kei not in evidence,
that Ranma is playing
"stand in" for the what would otherwise be occupied
by Keitaro. 

Ranma is not a stand in, he's Ranma given a similar
opportunity to Keitaro. There's a difference.


Whether this

role is handled how Keitaro would handle it or not
is not really relevant,

Odd, you seem to have a great deal of emotion about
this "not really relevant" part.

the fact that Kei is not there and Ranma is says
that it's a 'Ranma is
taking Keitaro's place in the LH fic'. Now, as a LH
fan I find this
tremendously disrespectful of the character and
story  of Love Hina to
simply edit him out. 

And I find it very annoying for you to say to me "You
can't write Love Hina without Keitaro! Or Grandma
Hina!" So I guess that makes us even.

His role in the manga or anime
was key. He provided the
element of growth and maturity that IMO Ranma simply
cannot fill because
Ranma is not about growth, but about trying to
remain childlike in nature.

And that would be your opinion. Backed up
by....nothing. Because I am not Rumiko Takahashi, I am
not restricted to keeping Ranma to the same one
dimensional character you seem to think he is.

(IMO this was precisely why Rumiko Takahashi ended
Ranma like she did, to do
otherwise, and continue the story, would have
required that Ranma start
thinking about the future, start making choices, and
growing up. As it was
she ended it on a note where the characters live
forever in a sort of
eternal spring, even though that spring is obviously
giving way to summer
following the events of Pheonix mountain.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with my story.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html
 
You don't seem to grasp the concept of fanfiction. I
can write OUTSIDE the manga.

-Shade

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