Hello all.

I've only been on the list for a couple of weeks now,
and this is my first public post. Obviously the topic
of the C&C and Ranma fics and all has been hashed to
the point of no return, but I'm going to call it back
once more, if only to provide the perspective of
someone who has just gotten to the party, and has
found that it is already ending.

I have a fic called "The Things We Do" stored on my
hard drive that is waiting, no BEGGING, to be posted
here (seeing that I've been working on it since June
of 98 and have 4 parts of it just about ready for
posting). Why has it not been, you may ask? Mostly
because of my insecurity about my writing, something
which I'm sure all of us have experienced at one time
or another. I had finally mustered up the courage to
post it, and was planning on doing so, but now I'm not
so sure I will. After all it's a Ranma fic, which will
undoubtebly anger those who want to see a greater
variety of fics to the list. It's a dark fic which
includes violence, which will annoy those who wish to
preserve the light-heartedness of Ranma AND those who
see the series as one long domestic violence lesson.
My insecurity is being fed by the recent events, and
it is enjoying a feast.

The point of this entire post is to try to show you,
those who have been here long enough to reminince
about what the list used to be like, and to wish for
those "golden days" to revive themselves, the effect
of the recent debates on a newbie like me. I'm not
even going to go into my opinions about the events as
of late, because I'm quite sure no one really cares
about what they are anyway, and I'll just be wasting
your time. All I'm going to say is that, for myself,
being new and reading the recent posts have made me
scared to try. Perhaps I'm over-sensitive or something
like that, but I'd like you to think for a moment if,
hypothetically, Krista Perry had ran into something
like this and decided not to post Hearts of Ice. We
would have been robbed of a fanfiction which truly
deserves publication, if not for the copywrites
involved. (And please, no debates with me on the
quality of HoI, in public or in private, if you have
the urge to do so. It's just an example of a fanfic I
love.) I'm not trying to compare myself to her in the
slightest, but I'd just like everyone to consider that
there may be other writers new to the list just as
talented as she is. They might have posted their
stories and offered us a wonderful journey into their
hearts and souls, translated into a medium familiar to
us all (anime fanfiction), had they not felt as if no
one wanted to read them. The FFML as of late has
seemed to me to be a hostile place to post and it's
made me MUCH more hesitent to do so myself. Quite
simply I feel unwelcome to do so because of my story's
genre and subject. And if I don't feel welcome, then
maybe others don't as well, and if others don't also,
then what's the point of the list anyway??? To argue
and bicker at one another like little children? Funny,
I joined the list because I wanted an outlet for my
fanfiction and a way to read others as well, in an
enviroment that could help us all improve. Why did you
join?

I don't think the good parts of the FFML are dying, I
think they are being killed. 

And if I've offended anyone I'll appologize in
advance. I didn't want to come off as a mean, bitter
bitch in my first post, but something wouldn't let me
let this go. I only wanted to alert everyone to
another perspective that has not really been presented
yet, and to help keep the FFML alive and a firtile
place for improvement. I truly hope the latter is
possible.

Thank you for your time.


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