[Ranma 1/2] Fair Warning

[DB]

Fair Warning stored at:

http://www.knology.net/~kenjiko2/Textfiles/other/Fairwarning1temp.txt

Here's a premise for a fic. Let's say there's this football team you like. Let's say they have a game against a tough opponent that goes back and forth. After a hard fought battle, the team you like wins the game in overtime by the score of 23-20.

Now, after watching the game and knowing the outcome, let's say you go back in time. You go to the team you like, give them the plays the other team will use so they can plan counters to them, since you know what they'll do in advance. So this time around your team wins again, crushing the other, 40-6.

Now isn't that second game much better and more interesting than the first? After all, close stuggles stink, and blowouts cause tension.

That's what Fair Warning, an alternate universe piece offered up by Kenko, is basically about.   Kenko, dissastisfied about how difficult poor, downtrodden Akane had it in the canon series, where she, you know, won, decides it would be even more interesting if Akane was told the future. So he goes back to just before the start of the series and has Akane visit Mr. Deus ex machina, fortune teller extraordinare  (and we know he's legitmate since he's using A!MG material) He then spells out for Akane that not only is Ranma her 'one true love' but he's really a great guy beneath a gruff exterior, so bear with him, 'cause it's already determined  he'll fall in love with you too and you'll have an eternity of happiness, 'cause he's your, you know, one true love. Oh yeah, and don't cook for him until you learn how.

We're then treated to a brief scene of how things will go as Ranma arrives and Akane calmly solves the initial problems between them and calms Ranma down and gets him to accept the engagement.

Now see kids, isn't that much better and more interesting than that silly nonsense Akane went through in Ranma 1/2 before winning Ranma's affections? I know I'm unable to sit still from all the excitement her foreknowledge is providing. Why there'd be no telling what would happen next, if it wasn't for the fact we already know.

It would take a truly warped mind to think this premise is interesting. It's the height of pointlessness, unless one wanted to make Ranma 1/2 totally boring. What's almost as amazing are the number of people that thought the idea was good when it was posted to the FFML, though no one disagreed with my statement about it, which was pretty much the above.  It's a total failure in every regard. There's nothing redeeming about it at all, other than coherent grammar and it's, thankfully brief. It's a blueprint in how to make a fic mindnumblingly boring.

a .5 of a point out of 5. Only inocherent grammar could have made it worse.

[Brian]

To be fair, Kenko has ... issues ... with dramatic tension.

[Edward]

Actually, this concept has a good deal of potential, if done right.  There are plenty of good time travel stories where attempting to fix a problem in the past makes it worse.

First, Akane would almost certainly blow the fortuneteller off, until Dues Ex Machina Man was proved right.  Then, after the initial blunders she'd overcompensate, acting with the same enthusiasm and skill she shows for cooking.  By this point the timeline should be so distorted the fortuneteller's advice is useless.  Then they're be some dramatic tension.

Alternatively, what if Akane believed the fortuneteller's information, but not his motives and used her newfound knowledge to derail things and ensure Ranma ended up with someone else so she'd be free to pursue Tofu.

[Dracos]

To be fair, Kenko has ... issues ... with dramatic tension.

To be fair, Kenko has issues with a lot more than dramatic tension.

Dracos

[Edward]

To be fair, Kenko has ... issues ... with dramatic tension.

To be fair, Kenko has issues with a lot more than dramatic tension.

Dracos

For example?

[Brian]

Well....  He doesn't deal well with negative criticism.  That's actually why he doesn't write anymore.  Someone said something less than positive about ... Girl Days, was it?  I had issues with that one of my own.

But I tend to dislike, "Oh, BTW, Ranma always loved Akane and only her, even if the scenario made it seem othwerwise" as a byline.  Either way, someone commented on a contrivance (and his works are contrived, believe-you-me), and he got hurt over it and stopped writing.

[Dracos]

Brian says it well.

He's not horrible, but he definitely has a fair bit of issues that hamper his writing.  He can be pretty funny at points but he has a veeery narrow range and often screws up his comedy in favor of 'akane fanboyism'.

Dracos

[kpjam]

Brian says it well.

He's not horrible, but he definitely has a fair bit of issues that hamper his writing.  He can be pretty funny at points but he has a veeery narrow range and often screws up his comedy in favor of 'akane fanboyism'.

Dracos

I found him quite humorous.  The fic this post is about is quite frankly, poor.  Paragon and Girls Days both had some good humor in them.  INMHO Girls Days just ran out of steam, he should have just closed it at some point saying, that's all folks.  Like most American TV and Takahashi's Mangas he didn't.  Lesson for fanfic writers, less can be more and learn to end things.

To be quite honest(puts on his Akane hat after much dusting) Takahashi was an Akane fanboy, she just gave the other girls credit and never faltered with showing Akane's faults, which at times Kenko didn't do.  Though he is far from the worst...