Standard C&C disclaimer: All comments represent the opinionated ravings
of a reader who doesn't like much anyway.

"Jon Osborne" <darklion25@hotmail.com> wrote:

Perhaps because Genma was so confident in his own schemes he didn't 

think he

would ever have to commit seppuku.  He has been shown to be rather
thoughtless in that regard.

That explains why he'd sign it, but why did he propose it repeatedly?
What did he gain, or expect to gain from it?

An excuse to never go home again?  His stance on how weak women are is quite 
evident.  The only thing they're good for is making heirs, which he already 
has.

That's fanfiction cliche. Genma's never espoused this kind of attitude
in the manga. (He baits Ranma at one point by telling him "You sound
like a girl!" but this one line is hardly an indication of the
uber-chauvinism that gets ascribed to him in fanfics.)

 He could make up all kinds of lies on what Nodoka considers manly to 
keep Ranma from wanting to go home.

What both of you are ignoring is that we *know* that it *didn't* happen
the way your story claims. In the second chapter of the first Nodoka
storyline (v.22 stories 2-6), we're given a flashback that clearly shows
how Noddy wouldn't let Ranma go until Genma agreed to the pledge. In
this story, Nod also makes it quite clear that she *does* intend to
enforce the contract if Ranma's found less than manly; she even swings
her sword at him in her sleep at one point.

Now, if you want to show a story where Nodoka's attitude changes, and
she decides that her son is more important than the pledge, that's fine,
as long as you develop it believably. If you want to write an alternate
continuity where things were different from the beginning, that's fine
too, as long as you keep it self-consistent and interesting and it's not
so completely different that it ceases to be a Ranma fic at all. But
saying that it was never so in the first place puts you in the position
of asking "Are you going to believe me, or Rumiko Takahashi?" Nothing
personal, but if you force that kind of choice, the odds are not exactly
in your favor.

I'll mention another such error in your story: Ranma may or may not have
had a period when he was stuck female during the "Cat's Tongue"
storyline, but we know he didn't wear women's underwear; it was quite
clearly established that the "Ultimate Moxibustion" story, which came a
good deal later, was the first time he did this.

Now, you might ask why I should worry about silly little things like
this. But mistakes like this can jolt a reader out of your story, like
driving down the highway and running into a speed bump. Especially when
your mention of something seems like it's meant to show something about
the character, maybe to support the development that you're trying to
show in your story. When you make glaring errors like this, it has the
opposite effect of convincing me that you really don't know these
characters very well, and if that's the case, why should I believe what
your story tells me?

Yes well, Genma has already apparently abandoned Ranma.  I wasn't going to
have both parents turn their backs on her.

I wasn't necessarily saying that Nodoka should demand that Ranma never
darken her door again.  But shouldn't she at least bring this subject
up, and perhaps the subject of grandchildren?

Point taken.  Nodoka is greatly concerned about grandchildren in canon.  I 

Actually, I'm pretty sure that there's no canon basis for this. Though
it's certainly something that your story could develop.

Overall, I'm afraid that my general impressions of this story were about
the same as David's. The whole thing with Nodoka went too easily for it
to be interesting -- and it doesn't seem like that part of the story, at
least, was going for comedy. If there's not much conflict or humor to be
had in this part of the story, why not simply skip past it?

I'll also mention that in a romantic story, internal conflicts tend to
be far more interesting than purely external ones. If the source of your
conflict is Soun and Genma being jerks, then the obvious solution is for
our heroes to kick them away and get on with their lives. It's much,
much more interesting if some personal qualities and feelings of Ranma
and Akane are the primary obstacles to their relationship -- as they are
in the manga -- because this is the sort of thing that the characters
need to grow to overcome. It doesn't have a simple answer.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html

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