Who Am I?
I'm a fanfic writer and a long-time reader from Australia, though I can't say how long- primarily because I don't know how long it's been myself. My primary focus of interest is Ranma 1/2, but I browse through many, many other areas. I'll read just about anything, but I can't stand slash or poor writing/plots/grammar/characterization in general, or Ranma/Akane and "Ranma embraces his feminity" type fics in particular. The last one especially gets my goat because it's so completely out of character: Ranma outright loathes his curse in the beginning and grudgingly learns to tolerate it, partly because he finds it useful for getting free food and primarily because he just can't find a way to get rid of it. Were he a bit more ruthless or adept at forethought, he'd have undoubtedly either realised he could simply charm either of the Kunos into paying for a return plane ticket to China or simply walked away from the Tendos and swam there- he did it to reach Jusenkyo in the first place, he can do it again.

What Canon Do I Use?
I always work with the anime canon for Ranma 1/2, primarily because it's the canon I'm most familiar with and partially because it's the canon I prefer. Let's get one thing straight- the anime didn't ignore the latter stories of the manga (Herb and the Musk, Umisenken/Yamasenken fight, battle with Saffron) on purpose, it went out of business four years before the author finished the manga. In a way, that's a good thing, because the longer-going manga suffers character decay- compare Nabiki's dealings with Kuno when she first sold him the photos of "the pigtailed girl" to the wedding, where she sold off details about it simply for the money gifts that would be delivered. In fact, I find the anime characterizations to actually be better, on the whole, as pretty much all of the characters who aren't Ranma and Akane actually get some development compared to their manga counterparts.

What Won't I Write?
I mentioned above that I don't like Akane/Ranma fanfics- in part, this is because they're so mainstream. Not only are they the "one true couple" of the canon, but the fanfics about them are so damn common and cliche. I haven't read a focused Akane/Ranma yet that I could stand to finish. Another reason is that I simply cannot find it in myself to consider Rama and Akane a good or healthy relationship. Yes, they are attracted to each other in canon, I'm not denying that, but so what? Even beyond the fact Ranma never gave any of the other girls an actual chance, they clearly don't respect each other very much, they don't have much trust for each other (at least, outside of the "He/She will come and save me from this mess I'm in" area), and I don't think they'd be very happy together if they did somehow get legally bound to each other. A big part of it is the double standard - if Ranma treated Akane remotely how she treats him, he'd be the abusive jerkass villain, not her "one true love". And before anyone points out that Ranma "deserves" the treatment Akane gives him, by that same logic, Akane "deserves" being treated the exact same way by Ranma - she too mocks and insults him, provokes trouble, runs around with other guys, does things behind his back... Ranma and Akane are exactly the same, and that's ultimately the reason why I don't think they "click" as a couple; they're just too similar, too alike in positive and negative traits, to mesh well. The other girls have enough similarities they can understand Ranma well (some better then others), and enough differences that they aren't scraping each other's nerves raw.

However, while I'm not too fond of Ranma/Akane, I cannot stand Ranma/Guy works of any sort, mainly because they're such a massive distortion of character. Even though he does grow more comfortable with his curse as the series (manga and anime) progress, Ranma never thinks of himself as anything other then a heterosexual male, and finds the idea of being courted by other guys to be horrific- even in situations where the guy has something seriously wrong with him, Ranma will not step outside of his limits. For example, a filler story from the manga has a pretty, if lecherous, boy will die if he doesn't take his medicine- but he refuses to take it unless he can get it from the lips of a pretty girl. Ranma, in female form, tries to persuade him to do it otherwise, but if the doctor hadn't offered to do it himself once the kid passed out, Ranma would have let him die rather then kiss him. The most concern Ranma has ever shown for a guy who's been attracted to him is in the "Stomperella" story, where his feelings extend solely towards intending to slip away before the guy, the one guy in the series that Ranma could have developed a legitimate attraction to, discovers that he was crushing on another guy. I will never write such a fanfiction, as I consider it essentially ripping out Ranma and inserting an Original Character into his life, with the other characters making a minimal uproar at best.

Similarly, don't ever expect "lockfics" from me; it honestly kind of disturbs me how popular this genre is, given that it's canonically shown to be Ranma's worst nightmare. Ranma was born male and considers himself male; he views his curse as just that, and if he was trapped, he would first attempt to move heaven and earth to be released, and then, if he exhausted all hope, would sooner commit hara-kiri then live as a girl. He hates it that damn much. Yes, he takes advantage of it, but he's not exactly the most moral of characters and he's practical enough to take advantage of something he's stuck with. It doesn't mean for a second that he's lost interest in getting it cured - hell, the fact he abandoned Akane more or less at the altar, despite having every evidence that his love for her was reciprocated, should be proof enough of that. I just don't see what the damn fascination is with torturing Ranma by trapping him in his own personal hell.

While it's not a major issue like the above, I won't ever do any of the "ship mates" pairings - Ryoga/Ukyo, Shampoo/Mousse, or Tofu/Kasumi. For one reason, they're just so cliche; it seems like everyone and his grandmother just throws them in, even on those rare occasions where Ranma hooks up with Nabiki or Sailor Moon or someone. For another, it's really just lazy writing; these are the characters who hang around each other so much (and, in the Shampoo/Mousse case, have an existing case of unrequited love going on), so let's throw them together to give everyone a happy ending/ensure Ranma and Akane will get together. Finally, I just don't think the work any more then Ranma/Akane does - hell, they work less. At least Ranma and Akane are attracted to each other; Ukyo and Ryoga are merely allies of convenience, Shampoo thinks so little of Mousse that even passing over a chance to make her his love slave failed to win him any slack from her, and Tofu's crush on Kasumi is not only, frankly, rather creepy, but totally unrequited - Kasumi may or may not be aware of it, but she makes it clear he's just a weird family friend. Borrowing books and sending him food is just her being her usual sweet, generous self, not a sign of real affection.

Ranmaverse Quirks
Though I write many different sorts of Ranma 1/2 fanfiction, fundamentally, all of them tap into a few underlying... let's call them concepts; particular ways of viewing the Ranma 1/2 setting that color my writing and my perceptions. Seeing as how I've had one person send me a PM to thank me for warning in my profile that I don't write Ranma/Akane fanfiction (Knight of the True Fiancee, you see), and I've kind of been trying to look at my own way of viewing things, I decided I'd make these beliefs clear as well. I may expand this list in the future, but so far these are the 'quirks' that apply to all of my Ranma 1/2 fanfiction.

Joketsuzoku & Men: let me make it perfectly clear. I do not believe that the "Chinese Amazons" treat men as inferior, or that they consider men second-class citizens. This makes no sense given their canon behavior- for a start, the whole Kiss of Marriage thing is completely opposed to the behavior of the Classic Greek Amazons, whose comparable behavior was "sleep with the guy who beats you, get pregnant, then abandon him". The only person that Shampoo or Cologne treat shoddily (besides Ranma, but everyone -from random people in the street to the Villains of the Week to his own parents to Kasumi Tendo- treats Ranma like shit) is Mousse, who lets Shampoo walk all over him as an expression of his feelings for her. Never mind the fact that Mousse has been stalking Shampoo for years, and quite possibly chasing away every boy she might have been attracted to until this point, and he is treated as little more than a nuisance: when he gets grabby, or annoying, he gets struck, and that's it. They treat him bad because he's a pain in the ass, not because he's a guy.

Joketsuzoku Village: whenever I do have Ranma and Shampoo hook up, I can honestly go either way on them moving back to Joketsuzoku. For a start, they seem to be quite happy in canon with the idea of Shampoo moving to Japan permanently if she weds Ranma- witness "Here Comes Ranma's Mom", where Shampoo is set to move into Ranma's "mother's house", with Cologne's explicit permission, or the Pink & Link manga arc, where Shampoo outright tells her village newspaper that she's moved to Nerima permanently to run the Nekohanten. That said, I do believe that Ranma would probably be happier if he did move to Joketsuzoku, as it's a village of martial artists and martial arts lore. Not only are there untold numbers of new techniques and challengers to face, but it's far more likely to appeal to him than life in quiet, civilised Tokyo. Ranma has spent his childhood wandering and learning to practice martial arts in everything he does; I can't really see him enjoying being forced to restrict his martial arts to specific times and places so he doesn't disturb the neighbours, never mind how ridiculous the idea of him becoming a salaryman is.

Crazy Kunos: I know I'm distinctly in the minority with this opinion, but I don't really consider either Tatewaki or Kodachi Kuno to be anywhere near as crazy as they're usually made out to be. I do agree that their father should be committed- it's obvious that he's completely out of his flipping gourd! Kodachi and Kuno, not so much. Of the two, Tatewaki Kuno is definately the more eccentric, what with his obsession with living up to his perceived status as a samurai, but that isn't entirely exaggerated; he is of noble birth, and he is of considerable financial standing. In all practical terms, he most likely is the equivalent of a Baron or a Duke. That he clings to outdated modes, and is egotistic, arrogant, lecherous and hypocritical, does not make him a total lunatic, it just makes him quirky. Kodachi, on the other hand, seems to me to be more an example of egotism, naivety and something that I can only call "spoiled"; self-entitlement complex due to being rich, powerful and generally used to being obeyed, coupled with relative social isolation and rather limited parental influence. She's just not quite "with it" on how people usually do something- in fact, I might honestly consider her the most innocent of the fiancees in the ways of the world. She just doesn't have anyone to teach her that the ways she goes about things aren't precisely right. The main reason people consider her insane is because she doesn't realise that the two Ranmas are the same person. Let me make something clear; that's not delusions, that's not ignoring reality, that's not being selectively oblivious: that's ignorance. Never, in either canon, is any step made to simply tell Kodachi about the Jusenkyo curses. In the manga, she sees Ranma transform a grand total of once. No explanation is given to her, she never sees it happen again, and Ranma changes back quickly. It's only natural that she would believe her eyes were playing tricks on her or something similar; everyone else is so blaise about the curses because they live with them pretty much 24/7. In the anime, meanwhile, Kodachi has never, ever, seen Ranma change between forms. Ranma does his best to switch back and forth in secret, so she has never seen the transformation, never had Ranma tell her outright what the deal is. Yes, it's unusual for two people to never be seen together and to share the same name, but unless the possibility is outright raised to you, you're not going to leap to the conclusion that they're the same person who switches genders! Kodachi, canonically, is just a victim of Ranma's own secretive nature and the fact he seems to have lumped her in as being the same as her egotistical, eccentric brother.

Ranma vs. Ryoga: this actually kind of bugs me. I see lots of people claiming that Ryoga vastly exceeds Ranma in strength, and their usual evidence for this is Ryoga's tendency to destroy stuff around him without meaning to. Firstly, destroying things by accident doesn't mean your strength is great, it just means you can't control it very well- which makes sense, given that Ryoga is entirely self-taught. Compared to Ranma, he's the equivalent of a backstreet brawler; someone who relies on raw ferocity and power to overwhelm his opponent and on endurance to let him take the beating. When Shampoo first appeared, and for a great while afterwards in the manga, she also left a trail of devastation in her wake when she was so inclined: remember the Hypnotic Mushroom story in the manga? When told to go home, she plows a path through every house and wall directly between the Tendo Dojo and the Nekohanten. Nobody ever suggests that Shampoo is stronger than Ranma. Secondly, Ranma has managed to pretty much match any and every direct feat of strength that Ryoga has purposely pulled off. In fact, I'd like to point out the first fight with Ryoga. Everyone always brings up how Akane and the Furinkan kids are awestruck by Ryoga's display and Akane goes so far as to warn Ranma not to get too close to Ryoga. I first want to point out that none of them have even the faintest clue about what Ranma is capable of; they're impressed by Ryoga, but not one of them has yet to see Ranma go all out at this point, so they are not in the best position to judge who is more formidable. Next, we have the sequence where Ryoga throws his umbrella at Ranma, who by this point is in girl form- which is explicitly stated in the anime to be physically weaker than his male form. Keep that in mind: Ranma's strength is currently decreased for this stunt. S/he kicks Ryoga's umbrella out of the air, grabs it with one hand and holds it outstretched without any effort. At the same time, s/he also picks up Akane (who, let's be realistic, probably weights just about as much as the umbrella) in the other arm, and then leaps about 4-6 meters straight up. With Akane in one arm and the umbrella in the other hand, displaying no strain in the slightest, s/he then proceeds to hop from tree to tree several times. When Ryoga does finally catch them, and latches onto his umbrella with his belt, the two proceed to rip it in half from the strain they exert on it. And Ranma does all of this in his weaker form. I don't believe there is very much, if any, difference between the strengths of these two rivals, and if there is any difference, then it's Ranma Saotome who has the greater strength. Ryoga, canonically, has the greater stamina and the greater endurance, due to his constant roamings and his Bakusai Tenketsu training.

The Nekoken: you will never see me claim that the Nekoken is some kind of "super technique", or that it results from a "demonic possession" or anything like that. In canon, it's treated as being merely a psychological wound- it's a trauma induced secondary personality. All of the power, in my opinion, comes from the fact that Ranma is already such a well-trained martial artist- when he "goes cat", he essentially becomes a cat with the same degree of strength, speed, agility, toughness and endurance that Ranma already possesses. The ki claws are basically applying the same principle that lets Kuno cut through a tree with one sweep of his bokken, or which lets Ryoga turn his belt and bandannas into razored cutting edges, to Ranma's fingers. Unusual, but he could duplicate the feat quite well in his real mind if he bothered to learn. If anything, the Nekoken is a weakness; because Ranma sees the world through the mindset of a cat when he's in the actual Nekoken, his priorities are totally different: he'll fight if he's attacked, but otherwise he'd rather climb a tree or chase birds. If Ranma had "gone cat" while fighting, say, Herb or Saffron, he'd have run away- his other personality would have no idea of the greater things at state and so would have acted entirely to preserve itself. And when you're fighting someone who can cut your head off from ten meters away with a flick of his wrist, or a walking flamethrower, that means running for your life. To say nothing of the fact that Ranma cannot enter the Nekoken voluntarily; even if he wants to "go cat", he still is compelled to run from any cat presented to him- Akane, Genma and Soun have to hold Shampoo-Neko against his face for about five minutes before he finally enters the Nekoken. Which brings up the fact that, until Ranma does enter the Nekoken, he's running around, totally defenseless, unable to do anything but scream in terror. Any martial artist that can capitalize on that (by A: being smart enough to realise he's defenseless, and B: being quick enough to actually keep up with him- Ranma can really move when he wants to) would win the fight right there and then. The only reason Cologne didn't smear Ranma on the ground when he tried that stunt in canon was because she chose to sit back and let him go into the technique to find out what he was doing. Ranma has never, canonically, beaten anyone with the Nekoken that he couldn't have beaten just fine in his right mind. Hell, in the manga, Tatewaki Kuno figures out that Ranma can be outthought, and proceeds to do so!

On Nabiki: I've had more than a few people comment that I treat Nabiki like a villain in my fanfics, so I decided to set the record straight. The reason I treat Nabiki like a villain is because, in canon, she is one. The only major difference between her and Happosai is that Nabiki never gets any sort of comeuppance- she always comes out on top. Both of them are selfish, self-centered, amoral and totally devoted to the pursuit of their own indulgences- Happosai his perversion, Nabiki amusement and the fattening of her wallet. She's not some kind of angel in disguise, she's certainly not a saint, she's a cunning, lazy, avaricious teenage girl who's quick to spot an opportunity to make a few yen. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I hate her, but I am fully aware that, canonically, Ranma dislikes her and she, in turn, doesn't really care what happens to him. If she did, she wouldn't have dropped hints about Ranma's true identity to Nodoka when she first arrived in order to squeeze a measly 500 yen out of him. It's less that she's evil and more that she's never had any fallout from her misdoings affect her- she always gets away with it, so she sees no reason to stop. She probably would improve as a person if she received a few hard life lessons, it's just that she needs to get those life lessons in the first place. Oh, and to set the record straight, Nabiki is not supporting the Dojo in any way- she's not some sort of master swindler, even in the anime, all she has are two or three friends with whom she'll set up small betting rings if a suitable contest or duel is arranged to take place at Furinkan High and she becomes aware of it. Not only does the money she swindle come at random intervals, it's pocket change- at her very most, Nabiki has charged the equivalent of about 50, and usually it's closer to 20. It's about boosting her pocket money more than anything. She's also perfectly willing to drain the Tendo Dojo's finances to support her own desires- witness the "Mrs. Tendo's Recipe Book" story, where her "solution" to Akane taking over the cooking is to order delux sushi combos for six people, or the start of the "Ten Yen Battle" arc, where she gleefully and blatantly admits to spending the month's savings on presents for herself. In canon, Nabiki cares only about one person; herself. Her sisters and father come a direct second to that, and she couldn't give a damn about anyone else. She doesn't hate Ranma, but she certainly doesn't care about what happens to him.

On Curses Mixing: To be honest, I find the concept that the Nanniichuan would only mix with Ranma's Nyanniichuan, or Genma's Shonmaoniichuan, or whatever, to be an irritating fallicy. Especially seeing as how we've actually seen Ranma and Genma use the Instant Nanniichuan to temporarily cure themselves, which is exactly what it's supposed to do. The only reason that this whole stupid idea even got started was because the manga had Taro somehow assimilate a Shanyuiniichuan curse -- and there are multiple reasons why that could have happened without contradicting the idea of Nanniichuan being a cure for Ranma and his fellow men (and, similarly, Nyanniichuan being a cure for Shampoo).
To begin with, there's the matter of what Taro's original curse was. We know for a fact that Jusenkyo can create multiple creatures, as seen by the Spring of Drowned Twins, and we know that the Niuhomanmaorenniichuan was made when four creatures, a yeti, an ox, a crane and an eel, all fell into the uncursed spring at once. Does Taro's curse turn him into a quartet of creatures? No! It turns him into one mixed-up mashup of an ox's head and leg's, a yeti's body, a crane's wings and an eel's tail. The curses, in his case, have clearly broken down and run together, so it could be that any other Jusenkyo curse he is subsequently exposed to would just be absorbed into the mix.
Next, there is the fact we're only told that he "used" the Spring of Drowned Octopus (alternatively, that he "splashed" himself with it). We're never told explicitly what he did involving the spring, and that raises two possibilities:
Firstly, he may have only strategically applied the water to his fingers and back, the only areas that show any influence from the Octopus water -- we're shown in that same story that a small, precise application of Jusenkyo water can induce a limited effect.
The alternative is that any Jusenkyo curse will alternatively replace or merge with a Jusenkyo victim's original curse, depending on how much Jusenkyo water the victim is subjected to. Note that whenever a Nanniichuan pops up in the series, it is always shown in sufficient quantity to fully coat a person. The Tendo koi pond, used to test out the Instant Nanniichuan and as a Jusenkyo Outlet in the last anime season, is large enough that Ranma and Genma can reach their waists or so just by wading into it. The Powdered Nanniichuan needs to be used in those "bathing drums" that are big enough that only the boys' heads are exposed when they get out. And that decent-sized keg of Nanniichuan in the manga finale was explicitly stated to only hold enough Nanniichuan water to use on one person.
Another possible reason is that "template" Jusenkyo springs (Nanniichuan for men, Nyanniichuan for women) are cures, but any other curse will mingle with whatever curse(s) the victim has -- so, if Ranma had somehow jumped into that Powdered Spring of Drowned Smilodon in the anime, this possibility means his curse would have changed to become a sabertoothed cat-girl.
Taro does not disprove the potential of Nanniichuan to be a cure because he has never been seen using it on himself and is not likely to be seen: Taro loves his curse, he would avoid curing it like the plague, so it's one very different subject against the constant statement in the series that Nanniichuan can solve Ranma's curse. Taro is just not evidence that Nanniichuan isn't a cure for Ranma -- the only reason Ranma never gets cured in the series is the same reason he never gets anywhere with either marrying Akane or chasing off Shampoo, Ukyo or Kodachi: the series just can't bring itself to have any sort of real resolution.