Okay. The difference between apathy and sympathy is S&M!

...wait, that didn't come out right.

Er, anyway, rehi everybody, from the boy who used to lift for the Syn 
List Reviews but slipped back into lurkerdom. Ironically, I've been too 
busy hounding down original canons to take much of a look at fanfic.But 
I still read, so, uh, let me start putting this stuff to use! Or something.

::jumper cables:: LIVE!

Heaven And Earth Chapter 1 Arun
(arun.prabhu.destiny@gmail.com)

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 and Flame of Recca belong to
their creators. I own none of these characters in this
story except the ones I create on my own

I still don't have the time to go point-by-point, so I'll start off with 
this: is this a crossover or a fusion? When I see "crossover" I think 
that both series canons are completely intact and have existed 
side-by-side. A "fusion" means that characters and canon locations from 
one series are taking the place of characters in another. It would be 
easier to make this fic work as a fusion, because there are some things 
that don't work for it as a crossover.

First, the bloodline of the Flame Dragons isn't exactly what you'd call 
prolific. You get one genuine flame master a generation; Recca and Kurei 
are an acknowledged special case, and they're the last in their 
respective lines. It's also rather surprising that Ranma should suddenly 
awaken to his powers with no buildup, given that Recca (self-taught 
ninja that he is) has been his own personal Zippo for as long as he can 
remember.

Second, everybody was on hand to experience the destruction of the 
Hokage village. There was one line of survivors that didn't get tossed 
through a rip in time, and they've been pretty much consumed with guilt 
over having lived on while Ouka, grandmaster of all awesome, got cut 
down. Even allowing for the leeway in your story, it's hard to believe 
that the family of bitter survivors would have allowed them to cast 
aside Ouka's legacy to join up with Nobunaga. Now, this assumes of 
course that what Genma and Soun are saying is _true_, which is never a 
safe assumption to make, but thus far we the readers have no reason to 
believe they're lying.

Third, there's some time pressure from the Recca canon, though exactly 
what relation its timeline is to Ranma I have no idea. But at the end of 
Recca canon the legacy of the Hokage locks itself back into the past and 
bars the door, meaning no more flame masters, among other things.

With that out of the way, some more general comments.

The prologue (not pictured) was suitably ominous and full of that 
half-defined imagery that shows up in dreams a lot, but for the life of 
me I have no idea who the woman is supposed to be. I mean, my first 
instinct is Rui, but the attitude is more like Kurei's mom.

But, uh, the first chapter lost me right at "it began like most fights 
between Ryoga and Ranma". I can count the number of fights that started 
just like that on one hand. One hand that has been deeper in the 
woodchipper than hands should go. Aside from that one bit where Ryoga 
let out ten years of bitter wandering, he and Ranma are good buddies who 
punch each other in the arm now and again, and by "punch" I mean 
"haphazard combo of martial strikes" and by "arm" I mean "face", but the 
sentiment's pretty much the same. Ryoga throws down directly with Ranma 
only when he's picked up some weird new technique or cracked-out mystic 
artifact (and lord knows there aren't any cracked-out mystic artifacts 
in Flame of Recca) and wants to see how it works. The remainder of the 
incidents are Ranma's personal top getting kicked off course by the 
mystic location/ancient legend/crazy wanderer of the month, and then 
Ryoga arbitrarily showing up at the worst possible time.

Even then, they don't randomly try to kill each other. I can maybe kind 
of buy this as Ranma waking up to his vaguely defined power, but there's 
no indication that this sudden attempt at total slaughter has any reason 
behind it at all.

And finally, I have no idea where this is trying to go. Ranma is going 
to get away from Nerima (aw, Bullwinkle, that trick _never_ works) and 
Cologne is running back to China - so, uh, every canon character save 
one is dropping out of the immediate picture, and I have no idea what 
else is out there to take their place. Not a good thing. How does this 
actually relate to Flame of Recca, outside of "Ranma can suddenly shoot 
fire from his forehead"? No links to Mori Kouran, the madougo, Tendo 
Jigoku, or any Recca character at all. No interesting conflicts either - 
Ranma has the flame, now everyone is second best, and the only people 
who understand it are running with their tails tucked between their legs 
with no indication they'll ever come back.

There are lots of ways Ranma and Flame of Recca could work together. At 
its most basic level, Recca is about ninja action and Ranma is about 
parodying ninja action, so a parody-oriented total fusion could come off 
rather well.

At a slightly higher level, Ranma and Recca both involve a lot of people 
who tend to solve problems by punching them in the face, so you could 
get crossovers running with a variety of circumstances. During Recca 
canon, some A-list Neriman finds a madogou, Mori Kouran's strike force 
shows up to take it, and Team Nerima unites to kick some butt. Ranma et 
al could also participate in the Dark Underworld Tournament of Death, 
either original flavor or post-canon, now with 50% less underworld and 
75% less death! You could also set some pieces post-series, with a 
wandering fireworks vendor coming through Nerima, or using Domon's 
flowershop as an incidental setting, or have Fuuko trying to track down 
Raiha and transferring into Furinkan because of the "Blue Thunder", with 
Team Recca tracking after her and getting mixed up in the usual craziness.

The idea that kept coming to mind when I was reading through, though, is 
a significantly darker fusion - in the recent past, Mori Kouran buys 
young Ranma off of Genma to (eventually) head up his personal army, and 
after Genma finally finishes counting the zeroes in the check and 
realizes what he's done, a time-rift opens up and spits out a baby, and 
Genma takes to raising it in Ranma's place because hey, free baby. And 
now Kurei is waking up to what he used to be. I was actually hoping for 
that until Genma and Soun spilled some arbitrary exposition.

--GF

More critiques of fic that I've been meaning to type out but never got 
around to, coming soon!

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