You see, all Ranma 1/2 fans(and those who read and write Ranma 1/2 fanfiction) can be broken down into two, simple groups: The Optimists, and the Pessimists.
The Optimists(sometimes also called �Romantics�) look at the characters and mainly see the good side. They, "Sure the characters have problems, but they can overcome them to become better people." They don't turn a blind eye to the bad points, but believe that the good outweighs the bad. The character can grow, learn, and change. Obstacles in the path can be overcome. Love between two people will endure, and nothing can pull them apart.
The pessimists, on the other hands, see doom and gloom everywhere:
Ranma's a socially inept jerk with a huge ego...
Akane's angry all the time, hoplessly violent and abuses him...
Shampoo's single-minded, and doesn't care about anyone or anything except herself, her great-grandmother, and getting Ranma...
Mousse is obsessed to the point of being a stalker...
Ryoga's eternally depressed, and is stuck in a cycle of angst and anger that will continue until he kills someone...
Ukyo is borderline psychotic. Having lived on anger and hate for most of her life(much more than Ryoga), she suddenly turns sweet and cute at the drop of a hat? That is not normal behavior, nor is it healthy...
The Kunos ARE mentally insane, but with the nobility and money to make people look the other way...
(And if I didn�t trash your favorite character here, let me know and I�ll add them! ^_^)
As a side note, you'll notice we see more dark and death fics out of the Pessimist crowd, who sometimes prefer to be called realists. And from a realist standpoint, the characters are hopelessly messed up and they�ll never lead any sort of happy life. Basically, they believe that the characters are the sum of their faults. Things won't get much better, or if they do, they won't get better for everybody. In the end, the characters failings will cause them to sink into unhappiness and heartbreak.
Reality is what�s all around us, what we live through every single day. And they�re right when they say that life is not fair, nor is it very kind at times. But I�ll clue you in to my big secret: I read fiction to escape from reality and come away feeling better and entertained. Then I feel more able to face the day, and am more likely to look deeper at the all the good around us. I don�t want to read harsh reality Ranma fics because 1: Ranma 1/2 is fiction and therefore NOT reality, and 2: I get enough reality from the world.
If you haven�t figured out by now, I fall into the former category. I choose to believe that the characters aren't bad people. I see their good side and believe that's who they really are. I don't ignore their bad side, but look deeper into their character, searching for why they act that way. In this way, I develop sympathy and empathy for all of them.
I'm also a romantic. I believe that two people who love each other, will end up together, because to believe otherwise means to abandon hope. And a person without hope, leads a depressed and sad life. A person without hope can never be a hero, because a hero is someone who believes there is always a way, and refuses to give up.
In Star Wars, the rebel fleet faced astronomical odds in blowing up the Death Star. They needed to shoot a small torpedo at a small target while moving at incredibly fast speeds. If they had no hope, they would have never made it. Ranma�s �never-give-up� attitude is what makes him a hero, not his fighting ability.
If you think something is impossible, you're right. It will never happen as long as you hold that attitude. As the saying goes, �Where there�s a will, there�s a way.�
Love is the strongest will.
As an optimist, I say they will have problems, but through that adversity, they will grow. They will not remain whiny children forever. And they are children now, just 16-year old kids. Those of us who have survived the teenage years, know there is no such thing as a perfect teenager. We also know it's an emotionally turbulent time. Throw in all the stuff that happens to the Ranma crew, and you can see how they would have problems.
Oh, and if you're a teenager reading this, all I can say is that you'll understand someday. :)
So I guess what I'm trying to say is, cheer up! Have some hope because things will turn out okay, even if it doesn't seem that way now. You have to believe that if you want it to happen. The more dark and depressing thoughts you have, the more adversely it's going to affect you(and your writing).
Ranma 1/2 is a romantic, action, comedy. For the most part, it's lighthearted and funny. When you take it too seriously, your appeal for it will diminish considerably, and then instead of enjoyment, you will find despair.
So, in case you didn't catch the first part of this whole thing's title, it's "You can't judge a book by its cover."
Something I think everyone who writes fanfiction, should keep in mind.
It starts here:
Well, now, this is something I can comment on... I've never really thought much of so-called dark-fics, it always seemed almost criminal to take a light-hearted, funny series and turn it into a depressing one. That's not to say that a certain degree of angst isn't okay. There certainly is some of that in the manga and anime. I've always seen fanfiction in three categories myself: those which treat all characters equally well (optimists), those which treat them equally badly (pessimists), and those which select a few characters to treat badly, while treating the rest well. It's really only the last kind of fanfiction that bugs me. I won't name any names, but I've come across much fanfiction which will take the negative aspects of one character, for example, Akane, and then make everyone else innocent. Usually, this is an excuse to start a Ranma/Ukyo or Ranma/Kasumi or Ranma/Someone-other-than-Akane pairing. Now, I've also seen several fanfics where Ukyo goes off the deep end, and everyone else is portrayed with their 'good' attributes. Really, those ones bug me just as much. I even read a Ranma/Akane fanfic recently in which Akane somehow became the person in the wrong, and even though Ranma was guilty of lying to her, everyone blamed her for her reaction to said lie, and no one thought Ranma had done anything wrong. Now, I admit I tend to lean toward Ranma/Akane, but I've read and enjoyed several fics with other pairings, as long as the characters were treated fairly. I think Akane and Ukyo, and to a lesser degree, Ryoga, all tend to get mistreated regularly. It's as you said, these are only teenagers, and having only recently passed through that stage of life myself, I know that it's a very trying time. But a commonality to most bad fanfiction on the web is that most of it contains numerous examples of selective growing-up, that is, where some characters grow up and become happy, and others don't and become miserable. I think that's the hardest part of writing fanfiction: allowing all the characters to grow. Even the ones we don't like.