--------------------------------------------------------------+

Take for example: "Ill met by starlight", a gripping tale that has

nothing

to do with Ranma other than the names of the characters.  Akane never
cooks, Ranma never morphs, Ryouga has been replaced by Project A-ko's
Mari-chan and all the personalities are different.

It does seem to be a bit of a common trait. Or, if people want to do a
generic story with more science-fiction, they use BGC. 
Not that all RANMA fanfics are like this, but I can see where ye're
looking at, Hen.

Why use the Ranma cast?  It saves ink on character descriptions. 

("Yes,

this is Ranma.  Sure, he doesn't act like Ranma, but he looks just

like

him, and you know what he looks like, OK?")

Exactly. Obviously this happens a fair bit in lemons, but there it's
kinda necessary. (IE, if characters never have sex, you've got to
change them a bit if you want them to get it on.) For some reason,
darkfics don't suffer as badly as some might think. THey often
exaggerate bad parts of characters, but usually ones that are actually
there.
(I say 'usually'. I'm leaving out the compulsion darkfic writers have
of turning Ryouga into a rapist and making Ukyou kill herself.)

Really I don't know which is worse, the Ranma stories where the author
thinks he hasn't changed anything or the ones where the author points
loudly to one thing and says "This is the change, everything else

derives

from this".  It just reminds me of my own work.

Yeah. Just-- Oh, wait. I guess that whole 'parents married the
Koishikawas' thing would qualify here...
 

So gang let's all use the [Ranma] warning tags, t'cha?

Well, in NARRABUNDAH 1/2 I do the opposite - the source stories (at
least early on) were Ranma, but the characters were changed utterly on
purpose...

Ratbat

===
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|   'This is the medical bay, for sick people only; surely you       |
| haven't broken out in a confusingly-filed pants rash?'   - Kryten  |
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| Urac 'Ratbat' Sigma, the Green Flame         ratbat@rocketmail.com |
|       To the Ratcave! http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/1778      |
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