Looking back
I remember the first fanfic that blew me away. It was called Hearts of Ice by Krista Perry, and the world it played in was Ranma 1/2.
How to describe Ranma 1/2? Hmm. Ranma 1/2 was a manga, later turned anime, the creation of the bent (and I mean that in the best possible way) and absolutely brilliant Rumiko Takahashi. The main character, Ranma, is an ego-driven 16 year old boy who was raised since infancy to be a "man among men." The twist? He fell into a cursed spring during training and now he turns into a girl when he's splashed with cold water. Another twist? There are lots of cursed springs, and for some reason they're famous training grounds for martial artists. So Ranma's got a father who turns into a panda and various "friends" who turn into a pot-bellied black pig, a cat and a duck.
See what I mean by bent? Only Takahashi-san could make up something like that. Oh and just to make things more interesting, Ranma's been engaged (since childhood apparently) to Akane, daughter of his dad's best friend, and he's been forced to enroll at Furinken, the local high school, which has it's own share of weird characters. Akane, btw, doesn't like the idea of being engaged either.
But that's not the point. The point is that Ranma 1/2 was incredibly funny, sometimes poignant, and it's got the most frustrating ending this side of well...anything! Because it doesn't really end! It may give you a better idea of how the main characters feel about each other, but that's it. Nothing's resolved.
Can you feel the frustration, so many years later? *lol*
In other words, it provided a perfect setting for fanfiction. And that's when I discovered that there are some truly spectacular authors out there who write simply for the love of the series/characters they write for, and probably for the writing itself. Hearts of Ice, unfortunately, is still unfinished (one of the risks one takes when reading fanfiction; the other is slow updates. I've been guilty of both. :P Just like any avid reader though, I keep hoping that Krista Perry will finish HOI one day). But there are other Ranma 1/2 fanfic classics - and no, I'm not using that word lightly - which were completed long ago. Ill-Met by Starlight by Susan Doenime and Mike Loader, the Seasons and Colors series of short stories by Joseph Palmer, and Waters Under Earth by Alan Harnum, to name a very few.
You read those stories, some of them dark and tragic and in Waters' case nearly mythological, and you wonder how that came out of something as funny as Ranma 1/2. But then that's the same thing some people ask about the latest Batman movie (The Dark Knight - excellent movie btw). As I overheard one gal put it, "That was a comic book movie?!"
People create. And though the "base world" may be the same, once their hands are in there, the story can change, take unexpected turns. Sometimes the results can be astonishing.
It's a long road from Ranma 1/2 to the Buffyverse and my own attempts at writing fanfiction. But that's where it started for me. Glad it did too.
How to describe Ranma 1/2? Hmm. Ranma 1/2 was a manga, later turned anime, the creation of the bent (and I mean that in the best possible way) and absolutely brilliant Rumiko Takahashi. The main character, Ranma, is an ego-driven 16 year old boy who was raised since infancy to be a "man among men." The twist? He fell into a cursed spring during training and now he turns into a girl when he's splashed with cold water. Another twist? There are lots of cursed springs, and for some reason they're famous training grounds for martial artists. So Ranma's got a father who turns into a panda and various "friends" who turn into a pot-bellied black pig, a cat and a duck.
See what I mean by bent? Only Takahashi-san could make up something like that. Oh and just to make things more interesting, Ranma's been engaged (since childhood apparently) to Akane, daughter of his dad's best friend, and he's been forced to enroll at Furinken, the local high school, which has it's own share of weird characters. Akane, btw, doesn't like the idea of being engaged either.
But that's not the point. The point is that Ranma 1/2 was incredibly funny, sometimes poignant, and it's got the most frustrating ending this side of well...anything! Because it doesn't really end! It may give you a better idea of how the main characters feel about each other, but that's it. Nothing's resolved.
Can you feel the frustration, so many years later? *lol*
In other words, it provided a perfect setting for fanfiction. And that's when I discovered that there are some truly spectacular authors out there who write simply for the love of the series/characters they write for, and probably for the writing itself. Hearts of Ice, unfortunately, is still unfinished (one of the risks one takes when reading fanfiction; the other is slow updates. I've been guilty of both. :P Just like any avid reader though, I keep hoping that Krista Perry will finish HOI one day). But there are other Ranma 1/2 fanfic classics - and no, I'm not using that word lightly - which were completed long ago. Ill-Met by Starlight by Susan Doenime and Mike Loader, the Seasons and Colors series of short stories by Joseph Palmer, and Waters Under Earth by Alan Harnum, to name a very few.
You read those stories, some of them dark and tragic and in Waters' case nearly mythological, and you wonder how that came out of something as funny as Ranma 1/2. But then that's the same thing some people ask about the latest Batman movie (The Dark Knight - excellent movie btw). As I overheard one gal put it, "That was a comic book movie?!"
People create. And though the "base world" may be the same, once their hands are in there, the story can change, take unexpected turns. Sometimes the results can be astonishing.
It's a long road from Ranma 1/2 to the Buffyverse and my own attempts at writing fanfiction. But that's where it started for me. Glad it did too.