If I may be so bold...

At the heart of the current debate du jour... or should that be de la
semaine... ah well...

Let's try this again.

At the heart of the current debate is what seems to be a conception that a
fanfic must necessarily roam within the bounds of characters as defined in
the manga and/or anime, or the characterizations should be questioned...

And the counter-conception that absolutely ANYTHING is possible within the
realm of fanfic... the characterizations are only questioned because the
original source... to wit, the manga and/or anime... is being assumed to
support them when, in fact, said support is not as obvious to others as it
might seem to the author.

M. A. MacKinnon's (apologies if the name is spelt wrong... I was never too
good with names) "Shadow Chronicles" are an excellent example, I believe, of
a few dozen sharp turns being taken from the original canon. Read the latest
few installments and try and find anyone acting fully in character, as the
manga or anime defines it. I doubt you'll be successful. Things have
happened to the Nerima crew that have made great differences in their
worldviews and the like (can I get any more generic?) and, as a result, the
characters would probably not recognize themselves as they were in the
original material. What does matter, however, is that, within the story and
its multitude of twists and turns, characters are internally consistent, and
the changes which take place have effects - documented or no - on their
respective personalities. The same can probably be said about either of Alan
Harnum's series... his original Nameless Saga or Waters Under Earth... the
Nerima crew undergoes radical character deviation as seen from the outside,
which is perfectly reasonable when viewed from the inside... the context of
the story and the events which occur therein.

Now... unless I've completely misinterpreted what's been going on... and who
knows, I may have... the interpretation Gary Kleppe was objecting to had
Ukyo and Ranma being bestest best friends... and said friendship was assumed
to have been revealed in the manga. Based only on what I've seen and what I
know about the manga... Ukyo did spend ten years training and actively
denying her own gender in the hopes of wreaking revenge upon Ranma and Genma
for abandoning her, correct? Perhaps I'm putting a slightly negative spin on
things, but something of that sort did happen. I'm not denying that Ranma
sees Ukyo as a friend... actually, he sees just about everyone as a friend
so long as they're not trying to kill him or run off with Akane... but,
unless I'm terribly mistaken, Ranma sees in Ukyo shades of a childhood
friendship, and Ukyo sees in Ranma shades of a budding romance.

I'm getting off track... better to leave the arguing about the point to
those who actually have more than a passing knowledge of the canon. The
point is that Mr. Kleppe took exception, not to the relationship itself, but
to the author's implications that the relationship was pre-existing and the
basis of an entire plot around said assumption. Not that that's a bad
thing... For Want of a Nail, the first of Bailesu's Elseworlds, provides an
interesting picture of a Ranma and Ukyo who really have been bestest best
friends since childhood. (Yes, I do like that particular turn of phrase.
What of it?) But it's an alternate universe story and clearly marked as
such...

And the point many others are making is that Mr. Kleppe shouldn't casually
brush off the criticism he's been given about Soun cooking for his family
now that Kasumi is gone. In all honesty, I find it hard to believe that this
particular assumption could ever count as anything less than a minor plot
point... throwaway at best... and that it's entirely possible that Soun
would at least try his hand at cooking in Kasumi's forced absence. After
all... someone had to take care of meals when it was just the Master and his
two kowtowing students on the road. It's entirely possible that Soun has
some small aptitude for the kitchen, and SOMEONE has to do the cooking now t
hat Kasumi's gone. But, as I said... I rather doubt Mr. Kleppe put a great
deal of thought in scanning the manga and checking to see if his
characterization in this small incident were accurate... it's incidental to
the central plot, at best.

And, unless I'm greatly mistaken, Mr. Kleppe and a few others have gotten
rather caught up in the throes of C&C as of late and made a few small lapses
in writing due to haste or overzealousness which are eagerly being dissected
by the next batch of people responding.

Now, what does all this have to do with the topic? I'm glad you asked...

You see, I don't read fics and look for IC or OOC... at least, not the
external kind. If a story is supposed to blend in seamlessly with the
original series, than the deviations from character are internal... and
internal changes in character, particularly unheralded ones, are the only
kind that matter to me. A story in which the characters stay true to their
original intents despite outside events is written as out of character as a
story in which the characters abruptly change for no apparent reason, if not
more so. Internal consistency is one of the things that makes a story worth
the time to read, at least in my experience. I don't worry about external
consistency for one simple reason...

According to what some might call one of the basic tenets of quantum
mechanics... there should exist an infinite number of parallel worlds,
because particles' motion cannot be accurately predicted from one second to
the next... and it is rather vain to assume that the path they take in our
perceptions is the only one they could have taken. Thus, just as whatever
happens in this world is possible, whatever is possible happens in a vast
number of parallel worlds. Or so I like to think.

One of the corollaries to this theory of mine is that whatever is written
has been or is now or will be happening... if not in this world, then in
some other one... which is why I have no qualms about reading stories that
pick and choose which bits of the original to follow, or even go off in
completely different directions, leaving only the names and physical
characteristics of the characters unchanged. If the story itself is good,
then the changes and omissions are justified... so long as said changes
contribute to the change in the story. A change which is only mentioned by
the author and never actively used leaves me wondering whether the change
was one of convenience and not required by the story itself... but I
digress.

Heck, I've been digressing. That's why I tagged this message as I did, so
you would be duly warned against my pointless rambling.

Now, why is this vaguely unsettling? Simple. If everything that is written
is happening somewhere...

"Artemis's Lover"...

"Enterprized"...

"American Kitsune"...

"A Sorceror, A Demon, and Emeralds"...

...are all, somewhere, somehow...

REAL.

This, at least to me, is rather unsettling.

--G. Falconar

Self-Induced Nausea for the Thinking Otaku... #640

1) Consider the nigh-inevitability of the romance between Serenity, Princess
of the Moon, and Endymion, Prince of the Earth.

2) Reflect that, perhaps, the attraction between the two is due, in some
part, to the relative proximity and mutual orbit that their respective
celestial bodies exhibit, and that love and gravitation are equally binding
and equally inexorable.

3) While in said state of mind, abruptly remember that Sailor Mars's crows
are, by some accounts, named Phobos and Deimos.

4) Consult an astronomy textbook to confirm the names of the moons of Mars.

5) Apply line of reasoning used in step 2 to the data from steps 3 and 4.

6) Scream real loud.