Hi!

Just a few words on the subject of Mamoru in this story...before our 
happy MSTers get too carried away with condemnation, ask yourself this, 
and be honest:  "If I were in the same situation, with the same bad 
information as Mamoru, how much less suspiciously would I be acting?"

I asked myself that, and the answer is:  "Not less suspiciously enough."  
Indeed, there are few actions Mamoru could take at the point in the 
story I last saw that wouldn't be at least a little suspicious. (His 
confrontation with Shingo...)
 
It's important to remember that Mamoru has been accused of crimes he has 
not yet committed, has not even considered committing, indeed crimes he 
would cheerfully join in punishing the perpetrator of.  But he has not 
been allowed to learn the specifics or even the nature of his supposed 
offense, and people (Usagi, mostly) get evasive whenever he tries a 
direct question.  It's very Kafkaesque.  Is it any wonder he's acting 
oddly, especially when you factor in those dreams?

(Doug, you may want to make it a bit more explicit, say a broken and 
bleeding "future Usagi" asking why Mamoru wasn't there for her.)

While Mr. Davies was...ungenerous...in his criticisms, he did have a 
point in that the assault conviction isn't supported by anything in the 
anime or manga.  Indeed, it tends to contradict what we know of Mamoru's 
character (more on that later.)  Heck, it stinks like week-old fish.

It occurs to me that if you were a time-traveler with computer skills 
and a good firsthand knowledge of how the Senshi think, this would be an 
ideal frameup.  Simply pop in a couple of weeks before the incident 
you're planning to provoke, and insert the false data into the police 
department's computer banks.  

When Mercury checks the police records, she discovers the "conviction".  
Since it's supposed to be a juvenile offense, the records are sealed 
(conveniently enough) and attempting to get further information would 
require Mercury to do some things that would dangerously expose her 
interest in the case.  And she won't ask Mamoru about it, since if he 
really is a bad guy, he'd just lie anyway.  And one of Ami's weaknesses, 
quite frankly, is that she tends to believe anything her computer tells 
her.

Of course, a further search might uncover traces of Mamoru being 
elsewhere when he was supposedly in prison, but Mercury is unlikely to 
look farther once she's had her suspicions confirmed.  And since old 
juvie records aren't looked at unless something comes up in the present, 
the time traveler can simply pop in a couple of weeks after the incident 
and erase the false evidence before the next database cleanup.

OTOH, the conviction might be real...but "assault" can be a pretty vague 
term, and the circumstances quite understandable.

Now, how many of you out there are absolutely sure there's nothing on a 
computer somewhere that might make you look bad if someone were looking 
for evidence you were a bad person?

If you're an amnesiac fic character moonlighting as a MSTer, let me help 
you (activate script mode)

Ami:  Usagi, I've been running a background check on Ranma and I've 
found something rather disturbing.

Usagi:  Really?  But Ranma's such a nice person!

Ami:  Well, maybe now, but once he gets his memory back?  I found out 
that he's under sentence of death in some place named Joketsuzoku for an 
"attack" on one of their female citizens.

Usagi:  But Ranma doesn't attack girls.

Ami:  It gets worse.  They've offered to commute his death sentence if 
Ranma marries the girl, a Shan Puu.

Usagi:  But that would mean...

Ami:  I'm afraid so.  Ranma is obviously a convicted rapist.  It's on a 
computer so it must be true.

Usagi:  Does that mean the wedding is off?

(back to prose mode)

See how easy it is?

Now, about Mamoru's behavior towards Chibi-Usa...  Remember, he doesn't 
see her as an abused child reacting to what she thinks is her tormentor, 
but a little girl whose father is for some reason absent, who misses her 
father very much and is willing to accept him as a substitute.  And this 
is very appealing to him.

While there are some rather large holes in Mamoru's background, 
(especially if you are using the creepily older Mamoru of the early 
anime, rather than the 17-year-old of the manga or the fuzzily-defined 
one of the R movie and beyond...), enough to put in a short prison term 
if you really wanted to, we do know that Mamoru lost his family when he 
was quite young.  Not just physically, but the brain damage apparently 
took most of his memories of his parents as well.

Since adoption of children w/o close relatives is relatively rare in 
Japan, it is quite probable that Mamoru grew up without anything 
approximating a "real" family, or the memory of one.  So when a "family" 
is offered to him, however artificial, he has a strong interest.  
Certainly he doesn't want Chibi-Usa to grow up as he did, without a 
father.  From his perspective, his motives are love and protectiveness.

Doug, you mentioned "Bitter End" and "Ill Met", and asked (more or less) 
what the difference between those and "Mama's Hand" is (outside the 
obvious plot contingencies.)

"Bitter End" is, *if* you accept the author's interpretation of certain 
events in the manga, a reasonably plausible extension of Akane's 
characterization in a new circumstance.  (Other characters' actions and 
attitudes are less plausible, but not terribly relevant to the issue at 
hand.)  "Ill Met", from its beginning, shows us that this is *not* the 
Ranma from the manga, and we are given strong clues as to why.  "Mama's 
Hand", conversely, apparently asks us to believe that everything is 
identical to the anime up to the end of the Moonlight Knight plotline.  
Thus, some readers find it difficult to believe that the rather passive, 
minimum-force only (even when a bad guy!) Mamoru has somehow mutated 
into the casually violent and abusive Endymion.

Also, in both "Bitter End" and "Ill Met", the abusive characters are 
treated at least somewhat sympathetically.  BE's Akane is shown as 
suffering from a mental condition that by its very nature prevents her 
from acknowledging that she has a problem and must seek help, and we see 
chance after chance for someone to make her get help slip by.  IM's 
Ranma is shown to have suffered a terrible trauma that leaves him broken 
and afraid, as well as murderous.  While their actions make them 
monstrous, we can also feel pity for them.  MH's Endymion, on the other 
hand, is not depicted as anything but a monster, so much so that we 
suspect possession.

My suspicion is that whatever event turned Mamoru into bad Endymion, it 
took place *after* the time period of SMR, simply because I don't think 
Sailor Pluto would risk sending Chibi-Usa to a point at which Mamoru was 
already murderous...

And I must admit that I see as most likely a rather melancholy future 
where Serenity and Endymion still love each other very much, but can 
never trust that love and assuage their loneliness, because of a 
poisoned shadow of "might be."

Well, that turned out to be quite a few words.  Hope I haven't bored too 
much.

SKJAM!
 



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