At 06:42 AM 11/11/99 -0800, Henry J. Cobb wrote:
Too many fusions I've read simply take the author's favorite characters
and place them in the familiar situations where they say the same familiar
lines.
If you're going to do that, why not acknowledge as much and skip over the
common ground so you can get down to your story?
Hmm. This works when the characters stick to canon, or stay in the lines as
much as possible (figuratively speaking). Sometimes, though, authors
(myself included) like to put the odd character(s) in the same situations
the person they've replaced (or fused with) to see how a different
character would react in the same situation.
To illustrate, overstate, and oversimplify, I've taken the liberty of
placing Ryoga Hibiki in this example in place of Yakumo Fujii. It's the
same situation as in the canon, but watch what happens:
Ryoga: So. I'm Ryoga Hibiki.
Pai: Hibiki?
Ryoga: Huh? What's the matter?
Pai: Your father is Professor Hibiki? From Tibet?
Ryoga: Tibet? He's in Tibet?
Pai: Yes, that's where I met him.
Ryoga (slapping forehead): Jeez! And here I thought he abandoned my mother
and me! The idiot just got lost again!
Mama-san: Figures. Like father, like son.
And so on. A lot of the fun from fusions and melds come from the characters
showing how they would react in scenes we already know from the canon. Of
course, you raise a valid point. If you're plopping down Tetsuo in place of
Kyosuke, he'd better not act like a carbon copy of the person he replaced.
I hope this helps the fusion/meld writers out there.
=====
"A little naive? Was that what you were going to say? A little naive?"
"I was going to say a little clueless, but yeah, that about covers it."
- Skuld and Keiichi, "What Wish?"