On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, Drakkus wrote:

OK.  First, you have to realize something.  If you, as a real person, 
were to meet people who acted like the Ranmaverse characters, you'd 
despise every one of them.  You'd hate or at the least dislike them all, 
including Kasumi.  

Of course. On the other hand, self-insertion is done because we all
fantasize about being able to crawl into the TV screen and be with the
characters we love. It's the self-gratifying fantasy that makes for bad
writing, and I realize this. My inserted character is a Machiavellian
bastard who's in Nerima for a specific reason and who stumbles across the
Ranma characters and decides to use them to achieve his own ends. I think he
fits rather nicely with the universe because he's as unrealistic as they
are, only unrealistic in a different way.

It's a nice concept, but I see a strong temptation here - basically, by
putting a Machiavellian character in with the mostly-naive Ranma cast,
you run the risk of having your character manipulate them spectacularly,
making him look like just another godlike otaku with a different breed of
omnipotence.  There's at least two ways to counter this temptation,
though - basically, either you move the character towards the Ranma style
or the Ranma characters towards his style.  Either the Ranma characters
manage, at least half the time, to foil his designs by stubbornness,
stupidity, flashes of insight, or just plain dumb luck, or some of the
characters (especially, for instance, Nabiki and Cologne) have enough
skill at scheming to challenge him on his own terms.  If you try to avoid
both of these, you're setting yourself up for a fall unless you think of a
really good alternative.

The other option is altering yourself to fit in with the Ranmaverse.  
Here we run into another trap.  There's a blatant temptation to have all 
the characters *like* you!  That's just no how things work in the 
Ranmaverse.  If half to three-quarters of the cast doesn't at least 
dislike you, you won't ring true as a Ranmaverse character (to me at 
least).  

By the time I'm finished, nobody's going to *like* my character. They'll be
in a position where he's forcing them to do what he wants, and they might
even respect him, but nobody will like him. Ranma will hate him because he's
dishonorable, Akane will hate him for forcing Ranma into his vicious, bloody
power struggle, Ryoga will hate him for the same reasons, etc, etc.

Again, we see the temptation of omnipotence slipping in...  If someone can
force Ranma *and* Ryouga *and* Akane *and* the rest to work for him even
though they hate him instead of ganging up on him and beating him to a
bloody pulp with no thought to the consequences, they're more powerful
than even Cologne, where it matters.  You might want to think on this...

There's also a temptation to have everyone listen to you and 
understand how wise your suggestions are.  They don't listen to each 
other in the series, why should they listen to you? 

If my character decides to bother at all with the love geometry of Nerima,
it'll only be to fuck it up more thoroughly.

So your character can stay aloof from one of the two most integral parts
of the series (the other being the martial arts) simply by deciding to?
Again, we see the air of superiority creeping in.  Sure the character
might not *want* to get involved, might even make every effort to avoid
getting involved, but quite frankly, the only canon Ranma characters this
seems to have worked for are Cologne and possibly Nabiki (barring
speculations about her and Kunou).  Everyone else is in one way or
another caught up in some form of romantic or pseudo-romantic activity,
even if it's only trying to avoid the attentions of someone else like the
plague.  How would your character react if, say, Azusa or Hinako-sensei or
Asuka the White Lily took a shine to him?  A character who's determined,
unpleasant to be around, and unwilling to be swerved by fast-talk?  If
your character could deal with them in less than an episode/chapter
devoted to it, there's at least a chance he's too powerful.

Additionally, if 
you've adjusted yourself to the Ranmaverse, how about giving yourself 
some of their peculiarities?  Just come up with two eccentricities and 
apply them to yourself. 

The way my story will work, the inserted character is going to be at a
distinct disadvantage no matter what he does. He does have a number of
eccentricites: his clothes disintegrate quickly when he wears them, his hair
is purple and will not bleach or dye,

Strange hair colors in anime are hardly a disadvantage. (q.v. Shampoo)

his health is in a perilous state at
the best of times, etc, etc. These penalties are the consequence of the
powers he does posess, and every time he uses his power, he runs the risk of
suffering more.

The health condition could be an interesting and crucial foil for the
character.  He might be able to manipulate half the cast, but he'd better
do it carefully and *extremely* subtly, or he might find himself knocked
unconscious casually while his plans collapse around him.  Having him
discover this the hard way would be interesting.

(Example:  Total inability to find things.   
You always know where you are, but it takes you twenty minutes of 
searching to figure out which pocket you left your keys in.)

Those are very cartoony. It's one aspect of Ranma I've always had a little
trouble with, as a writer. From what I've seen in the world of fanfics, I'm
not the only one. Other writers are constantly adding depth and additional
complexities to the characters.

True, but they're rarely taking out the original material.  Ryouga may
range from the 'gets lost in closets and can wander into different
universes' down to 'takes him a few hours to find his way from house to
house,' but his abysmal sense of direction is still present.  Most of the
time, Akane still has a temper, Mousse still can't see very well,
*everyone* is still extremely stubborn and thickheaded, and so forth.  The
amplitude can vary depending on the tone of the story, but everyone still
has bizarre characteristic foibles that have gone a long way towards
defining them.

You know what I'd like to see? (Addressed to all self-insert writers)  
Write your girl/boyfriend in with you and then have a Ranmaverse 
character steal her away!

My character's mate is living on the other side of the world. He hasn't
spoken to her in twenty years because of the nature of the work they do, but
he is stolidly faithful, and refuses to touch anyone else (without her
participation/permission, anyway.) My character has no intention of stealing
anyone.

Which should make him an instant target for every unattached female in the
Ranma universe.  Sheerly by coincidence, of course.

Actually, what *I'd* like to see in an otaku insertion fic is for an otaku
to get dropped into a world he knows absolutely nothing about.  Most of
the time, when the otaku is actually plucked from our world into an anime
world, it's one of his favorite worlds, simply because he knows
everything his author knows, and his author *has* to know the world to
write the fanfic.  And since he knows everything about the history, he can
go about making changes as he sees fit, or at least trying to - joining
the Knight Sabers because he knows everything about them, fixing the Ranma
relationships, etc, etc.  Now, how this goes wrong can make interesting
stories in and of itself (Bubblegum Zone, Twisted Path, etc), but it's
been done rather heavily.  Imagine if some random otaku from this list
were dropped into, say, the Shoujo Kakumei Utena unverse.  It's a great
series, but one that's very poorly known in the US, simply because it's
still in its first run on TV in Japan and no fansubbers have finished
tapes of it yet.  If someone with great power and a knowledge of anime in
general were dropped in there with no clue as to what was going on, things
could get interesting (in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse) fast.

(Actually, I've vaguely thought of doing a collaboration like this some
day, with me writing the Utena characters and another author writing the
otaku.  Well, maybe someday, if I can find the time (which I might next
semester).  It's an interesting idea, at least.)

Thanks for taking the time you did. :) Yours is by far the most detailed
answer I've gotten to my questions. I'm also taking into account that the
Chinese names are fanwriter inventions, and using them anyway. 

Actually, as I recall, someone actually found the kanji in the original
tankoubons and looked up the Chinese pronunciations for them.  I
definitely remember Shampoo was Shan Pu, and Mousse was Mu Si.  I'm not
sure about Cologne, but it was something odder than you might think - Ku
Ren or something like that.  Anyone with the original stories and a
Chinese dictionary willing to look them up?

-- 
Scott Johnson |
zagyg@io.com  |          This space intentionally left blank.