Please pardon the long, non-proofread rant. I tend to go off on these huge asides at times. Let me know if something is not clear, because I'm sure I left a dozen confusing statements in the text below.

I understand your concerns about the lack of Ranma/Shampoo quite well. Unfortunately, I think the golden age of Ranma fanfiction is over. Too many good, creative writers have moved on to other series, and so the Ranma fandom is left with a huge majority of the average writers that can do little beyond rehash the same tried and true plot in various incantations. In fact, you are one of a very small handful of Ranma authors that I still follow.

That said, this was not always the case. Back in the day there were numerous very well written Ranma/Shampoo stories. Many of these are less likely to show up in the filters, since half of those stories never even made it to , and the other half was completed or abandoned long before the paring option was added to the Ranma category. If you would like, I invite you to glance through my C2 (Or whatever it's called these days), since I might have a few of those older gems in there.

Regarding the distribution of stories; I would not look to the relations between two characters, and expect fan-fiction based solely on that. Fan fiction, after all, is a form of creative expression, so you would be more likely to take the character archetypes, and apply them to your own story, than use everything as it was presented in the original work. Instead, I would argue that popularity and depth of character info play a vital role in how often a character appears in any given story.

With that in mind you may see why Ranma/Kasumi stories are so popular; Kasumi is generally liked by most of the fandom, and though her character is not very well explored, she does provide the perfect proverbial blank slate. Interestingly, seldom have I seen stories where she played an antagonistic role. In contrast we have Nabiki. I am sure we can both agree that Nabiki is widely reviled in the community. Just look at the sheer volume of stories where she plays the bad guy. However, she was one of the more deeply developed characters in the series, often appearing in most any arc, and changing significantly throughout the story. This gives Ranma/Nabiki fans a lot of material to draw on. I would argue second only to Ranma/Akane. As an aside, I always felt that Nabiki was Takahashi's avatar in the series.

Shampoo, by contrast, has always played a much smaller supporting role. You could go whole arcs seeing nary more than a mention of her. As such, most of Shampoo's character is fannon. Some may argue this is bad, and only cannon matters, but frankly, if I wanted cannon, I would just read the manga. Of course creating entirely new personality traits for your character takes a lot of work. You could simplify the process some by reading a lot of fan fiction, and getting a feel for how the community sees the character, but that is a lot of work, and still does not remove the need for some creative talent.

So, to put it another way, say you have a group of 100 people writing Ranma fan fiction, and of that group 60 people prefer Ranma/Akane as the most obvious pairing; 30 prefer Ranma/Other Fiance, either because they have grown wary of Ranma/Akane, or because they really do prefer this alternate pairing; and 10 prefer Ranma/Crossover Girls, which truly offers endless possibilities. Further, let us say that only 25 have the creative talent to be writing good stories. By these numbers, only 7 people would even consider writing a Ranma/Shampoo story at any given time. These 7 people would also be the ones likely to write Ranma/Kasumi, Nabiki, Ukyo, Kodachi, and countless others. This is before we get to the part of the fandom that prefers Ranma to be female.

There are now three quantities to consider: first, how many people are writing stories; second, how many have true creative talent; and finally, how many enjoy a pairing other than Ranma/Akane. As time goes on the first naturally goes down as younger generations are drawn to newer manga more suited to their taste. Similarly, the second will also drop, as writers prefer their work to be more widely read, so they will often tend toward slightly more popular categories. The last is hard to predict, but I would wager that it varies quite a bit around some central balance point.

So, by the process of induction, you are left with precious few authors that would care to expand outside of their comfort zone. You take up one of those spots, so it should not be too hard to imagine that the probability of another person like you writing stories right now is not as high as it used to be.

I do hope you will keep writing for a while more though. The Ranma fandom has a special place in my heart. It kept me company through many years of my life, and it is nice to see someone trying to breathe new life into it.

I agree with your after-chapter speech. Getting down to the basics, Ranma and Shampoo are really the most reasonable match in the series as far as their mutual lifestyles work. Ranma really wouldn't be cut out for being stuck in a dojo for all of his years any more than he would be suitable as a restaurateur.

This is not to say there would be no problems, but nothing that couldn't be worked through for the better of all involved. I'm a big fan of well written Ranma/Shampoo stories, then again... I like all well written Ranma stories. xD

I may have to plumb your favorites listings for any stories that you may have that feature this pairing. =3

Hey, speaking of TV Tropes, I've been considering adding your name to the Fanfic Recs page for a while now. And no, I'm not just saying that to make you happy. :)

Seriously though, you've been an inspiration to me. I've been planning to write a Ranma/Shampoo fanfic for a while now, but I've always been too lazy to do so. I'll probably get to it eventually, though.

(Then again, it'll also feature a quasi-crossover with Batman, and that just pretty much writes itself from there).

Ah. Not bad. Not terrible. Woohoo for these two chapters

This one again, huh? Nice to see it regardless.

As to your comment about the lack of Ranma X Shampoo fics, I hear ya. There are a couple ways to deal with it though. You can just get mad, get mad and post about it in a blog or forum which I don't find very affective, or, as you do, you write your own stories. That way you get your own opinions out there and show just how the characters can develop given the right circumstances. It's really the best way to go about it.

Ranma 1/2 is an old series and many people have already made up their minds about what to think about the characters. I also think early fanfiction had a lot to do with the stereotypes and cliches that we are seeing today. The fanfiction community of Ranma 1/2 is seeped deeply into fanon so it's going to be an uphill battle to get others to see it your way. Like I said though; good, entertaining stories can help.

Keep 'em coming!

Girls probably don't write her because she's typically seen as big breasted, arrogant, selfish and hyper-feminist. Not exactly hero material. Guys don't because, while beautiful, cute and seeming to have things in common with Ranma, she's a black widow. I'm not sure of others, but I've never seen canonical evidence that she would do any thing other than take him to a village to be treated as a second hand citizen and automatically thought of with little respect and often outright contempt if he got involved with her. She is the choice of the other head, able to get all men's dander up, and completely willing to take away his self respect, and freedom given the chance.

Ah, yes, I feel your pain. Shampoo+Ranma fiction... hell, Shampoo fiction in general, is very lack luster. I'm personally not set on Ranma+Shampoo, I'm good with a lot of combos, but even that is hard to find. It is especially annoying when so many stupid ** plot points are used against the couple too. Bad enough they overblow what is in the canon, you get so much made up *bleep* too. *sigh*, oh well.

I agree with you about Shampoo, it's ridiculous how few stories there are about her and Ranma, especially in comparison to those that are utterly impossible, namely any sort of yaoi pairing. Ukyo is in the same boat, in fact she's even worse off, despite the fact that among the three fiancees, she's probably the best match for Ranma. At least in my opinion she is.

I would love to write a Ranma/Shampoo or Ranma/Ukyo story, but I have a policy to not write two stories at the same time, if I try then the quality of both hit the gutter and I refuse to do that. If I'm going to write something, I will do it well. But once I'm done with my current story, you'll be seeing my works over here as well, don't you worry.

A lot of people that really like reading shampoo stories don't write them because of having to do the dialogue with her accent.

I can't believe you made him die!

Ranma doesn't lose nor does he die in the attempt!!

It just isn't done!

I hope you do make a Nabon Mirror episode that can cause the kiddos to prevent this situation from occurring!

Perhaps, Mzu Tsu is the man/kidnapper?

POST MORE ASAP!

My guess for the killer would be Mousse or Ukyo, those are the only two that use steel weapons. Or perhaps Kodachi, she's crazy enough and definitely has the means to obtain something like that.

Yeppers I'd love to see where this is goint to. ;)

Awesome. Thanks for this *happily sighs*

The End. And the Beginning.

-I like it!! It promises..something. Haha.

I for one would love to see this turned into a full series. (But then, my review history probably makes that obvious.) In all seriousness, this setup is pretty much ideal for Xian Pu; the lack of cat-curse will help her more than she knows.

An idea/suggestion for an entry in this anthology - Ranma decides to turn male before fighting Shampoo over the food, prompting a very different reaction from all observers...