I just realized that there was something horribly, terribly off about the
premise. It made a nice songfic, though, you have to admit...

The whole bit about Cologne sending Ranma BAD stories is a bit OOC for the
both of them. First, Ranma is likely to just go to sleep if something comes
up on the screen he can't understand (on account of grammar or spelling or
something like that), and is likely to laugh at rather than be disgusted by
something fully lame. Second, if Cologne wants to force Ranma out, she won't
be sending BAD stories in... she'll be sending him exquisitely written and
engaging fics.

They'll just be darker than Kodachi's rose petals.

You can imagine Ranma and anyone with him looking more than a little askance
at Kasumi's cooking after going through Richard Lawson's "Appearances". Or
steering clear of Akane after making it to the bitter end of Zen's "Bitter
End". Or having nightmares about his alter ego after reading "Ill Met by
Starlight". To say nothing of the looks everyone else would be giving him.

And after Ryoga wanders in... like we all know he will... she'll send in
some of the just straight depressing stuff... like Lawson's "Transitions".
(yeah, I know it's Nuku Nuku, but...) And then goad Ryoga into blasting
Ranma with that depression-powered ki attack of his, whatever it's called.

But... there's a catch. You see, Mousse... well, he reads some of the stuff
too. And you'd be surprised what he finds out about himself that he never
bothered to notice before. He sees himself acting stupidly without his
glasses, chasing after Shampoo like some hentai... the list goes on. He also
picks up a few hints about dealing with Shampoo and Cologne from the stories
where it works out between him and Shampoo. And then he wonders what would
happen if...

He sends Nabiki into the dojo to look over "The Right Side of the Ledger".

And Soun and Akane to see "The Heart of the Home".

And, in exchange for a week's abstinence from her, Shampoo agrees to read
his prologue from "Hearts and Minds".

You can guess where this is all going.

Mousse gets Ukyo to pop over via a phony order for take-out in the middle of
the night (hey, if some eccentric rich guy WANTS to pay 5 million yen for
one of her specials, that's HIS business) and shows everybody "Thy Inward
Love". And, with Shampoo's help, shatters the spell around the dojo and puts
one over on Cologne.

And then they maybe throw Kuno and Kodachi in there for "Roses of Shadow".
Maybe.

So... what I'm asking is if anybody has a few fics to suggest. Either
well-written dark ones or truly heart-wrenching ones or ones that would
force a whole heck of a lot of introspection and soul-searching. I'm not
going to be MuRTing in the sense of MiSTing... I think I can actually manage
to show how the Ranma characters would react to what was written (no, not in
the revenge-fic sense) and, perhaps, how they'd change. Perhaps.

Keep the suggestions off the list, please.

--Glazius