I agree with Gary and Don that the intent of the story really
isn't clear. I'll try to cover both in my C&C.
This was originally gong to be a one hour fic, but it stretched into
just over three. It's been too long since I've had time to
do this kind
of extended writing in one sitting, so I'm not sure if this
is quite as
good as it could be. If you can see a way it can be made
better, please tell.
It's not as good as it could be. As Don said, this _could_
be quite good. Make up your mind what kind of story you're writing,
and delete the other stuff.
[insert standard use-of-Ranmaverse disclaimers]
Ditto. Why bother if you're not going to show Takahashi respect here?
"Says who?"
"Says..." Ukyo blinked. "Akane, he's married to you. That means I
can't pursue him any more. If I'm going to maintain any sanity, I'm
going to have to go where I won't be reminded of him..."
"Or you could become his mistress."
"...or I could whahahey?"
"Ukyo...I've given a lot of thought to this. I don't want to lose you
as a friend. As large as that pervert's heart is, I don't doubt that
I'm going to wind up sharing him with *someone* someday.
Given that, I can't think of anyone I'd rather share him with than you."
"Akane..."
"I know, I know. I'd be lying if I said I'd rather not have
him all to myself. But I don't think that's possible, not for more
than a little while. He glomps onto you or Shampoo every chance he gets
as it is..."
Speaking as someone who has taken almost this exact path myself, in
my fics, I don't think you're giving Akane enough reluctance here.
I'd think about clueing the reader in on the infertility up here
somewhere, but even then, agreeing to this would be agony for Akane.
And where's Nodoka in this? Her role, and usefulness, in arranging
mistresses for Ranma is irreplaceable. Having Akane agree because
_Nodoka_ told her that Ranma "playing around" is inevitable is
quite different from Akane deciding that this is inevitable on her
own.
There are also a number of Ukyou fans who wouldn't buy her immediate
agreement to such an arrangement.
"If this is my only chance to be with Ranchan, my only chance to share
his heart...can there be any other answer? *Thank* you, Akane, you
don't know what this means to me."
"I think I have some idea, if the fact that your tears are soaking far
enough through my dress to start moistening my bra strap is any clue."
Now, this section says 'comedy' to me. If the author wants this story
to be a comedy, keep this; if the author wants this to be a tragedy,
this really should go.
"Say WHAT?!?"
"Ukyo will be your mistress."
"Don't I get any say in this?"
"No."
Basically, an author has a choice here. This Ranma is IC w.r.t.
libido, but OOC in agreeing anyway. The other option (the one
I used) was to have Ranma OOC w.r.t. libido. Takahashi's Ranma
would just start the "no way I'll ever..." all over again.
"Yeah, right. A 'friend' who would cut out her heart and leave it on
your doorstep if she thought it would please you. A 'friend'
who loves
you just as much as I do. A 'friend' whom you glomped AT OUR OWN
WEDDING!"
In canon, Ukyou is not in the habit of glomping Ranma the way
Shampoo is. And Akane isn't as blind as you make her out to
be in mistaking such events. While canon gives little clue
as to Akane's opinion on how much Ukyou loves Ranma, Akane saying
this of Ukyou doesn't ring true to me.
Akane turned to look at her other sister, and had to suppress
a yelp of
fright.
"Eight hours. *Eight* *hours*. And all my recording equipment just
happens to be in for repairs."
"Eight hours, forty-one minutes, and ten seconds, actually."
Thus the recommended '[Lime]' tag. And putting lines like these
in is just screaming 'comedy'.
"This isn't the way home."
"No, it isn't, Ranma. Remember? You're sleeping at Ukyo's tonight."
I'd have thought, somehow, that Akane'd be more of a traditionalist
on this. You could have a bit of fun with Akane consulting Nodoka
on how mistresses are supposed to work.
I'm not completely clear on this myself, but I'd think there might
be a tendency for Akane to insist that Ranma NOT sleep at Ukyou's,
or at least not for the whole night; that he return to the Tendo-ke
before dawn.
"Akane, Ukyo's my *friend*, not my *mistress*. I still think
of her as a guy sometimes. It'd be...weird."
This works for me.
"Welcome. Ukyo awaits upstairs." Konatsu seemed to, as usual,
materialize out of thin air.
What's Konatsu's attitude towards all this, anyway? Agreeing
to stand aside I can see, but what are his own desires?
"Hi, Konatsu. So, how long did it take?"
"I beg that I might once again slumber here."
"THEY'RE STILL AT IT?!?!? It's been, what, over 50 hours?"
"51, in a couple minutes."
<clip>
"Seriously. The Guinness people confirmed my count of 71.4 hours, but
this was not quite the record Ukyo had hoped it would be."
Again, there's just no way that this material can't have been
intended to be comedy.
"Chestnut Fist Revised..."
Nabiki rolled her eyes. It was *just* like Ranma to turn even *this*
The impression I got here is that you're putting in every single
joke you could think of. I'd think about trimming a bit; this one
just wasn't funny to me.
"Her sleep was plagued with nightmares, or so I suspect. She kept
mumbling something about 'can't'."
"'Can't become pregnant.'"
"Exact...Akane? You're up!"
"Morning, you two. Sorry about fainting like that. I guess maybe I
should've told you."
Ukyo's mind had already reached its conclusion, but Konatsu's - having
less direct experience with the subject - had not. "Told us what?"
"I'm infertile."
This is an abrupt change of tone. The only way to make this funny is
to turn this into very black humor, which you're not (successfully)
doing. Rather, this is where a comedy turns into a melodrama.
Ukyo shed one tear. "Akane...I'm sorry. I would've braced you have I
known..."
Doesn't ring true; too surprising. Ukyou's jaw needs to hit the floor
first.
"Don't worry about it. I've known since...well, before the
marriage. I
should've told you that was the other reason I wanted Ranma to have a
mistress."
The reader should've known about this from the start, as Don said.
"You mean, you wanted me to have his child?"
Why would Akane pick Ukyou for this role? Why not Kasumi or Nabiki?
Besides the fact that the child will inherit the Dojo, there's just
plain human nature: Nabiki's child by Ranma has a lot of genes
in common with Akane (and Akane would consider that she need not
worry about losing Ranma to Nabiki), whereas Ukyou's does not.
"Yeah. Kinda selfish, maybe...it's my fault. Before I met Ranma, I
tried many ways to become stronger. Some standard and recommended,
some...not. The steroids, for example."
As Gary remarked, this needs work. Akane certainly _does_, in canon,
accept ability-boosting happenstance, and enjoy it, despite warnings
of unwise side-effects, but she doesn't go this far. You have a
number of options:
- If you do really want tragedy, just have her fall sick or
something. Or you could do something really heartbreaking
by saying she was actually born male, or semi-male, and 'fixed'
in infancy (Ranma, white-faced, as he remembers calling Akane
a tomboy; slipping and doing it again).
- If you really want comedy, just refer to an extension of the
Super-Soba and dou-gi principle: "Remember Happosai's Super
Soba? Well, the following New Year's Happosai made up some of
this 'Hyper Soba', see, and it had this unfortunate side-effect..."
"Come on, you two. It's time for our son's fifth birthday!"
Ranma slowly stretched, and reflected on how life had changed. Nabiki
and Kasumi had moved out, but Ukyo and Konatsu took their places.
Why did Konatsu move in with Ukyou? It would be more like Ukyou,
as we know here, to leave him living at Ucchan's.
Nodoka had been pleased enough at how Ranma turned out that she asked
Genma and Soun to move in with her to leave him his own house
- and the dojo, too.
Soun moving out is implausible, unless you're deliberately being
so. At times this fic borders on that kind of humor, but you
don't consistently stick to it.
When Ukyo's pregnancy forced her to take leave of her business, she
offered to let Shampoo take over - on the condition that
neither Mousse nor Cologne come with her.
Does this mean that Ukyou _sold_ the business, or just took a leave
of absence from running it? The latter is plausible, the former not
(without financial details you don't provide).
The other Amazons had been outraged at such
a blatant attempt to remove one of their finest warriors from their
influence, but Ukyo convinced Shampoo to file for political asylum and
start a new life in Japan, mainly by pointing out that to return in
failure meant near-certain death. Cologne and Mousse were summarily
deported on suspicion of conspiracy to murder a new Japanese citizen.
Shampoo still came over from time to time, but only as a friend now.
There was no doubt that she truly had loved Ranma at one
point, but only honor kept her from even thinking letting her heart
hold any other emotion - honor in a system that she no longer cared about.
There are a number of implausibilities here. If deliberate, okay;
but you have to stick to that tone once adopted. Otherwise, all of
this needs work. Why even keep Shampoo around? You don't really use
her later on. Given that she IS around, why is she content to stay
out of this arrangement?
Most of his other friends from years ago had moved away. Ryoga and
Akari had presumably married, or not...the laws and formalities in the
rural area they farmed were quite a bit looser than Tokyo standards.
The Kunos' money had not, in the end, lasted forever; when
the money ran
out, Tatewaki took what little was left to fend for himself and put
himself far away - physically and emotionally - from his past, Kodachi
was rumored to have run off to some American artists' colony, and the
head of the clan committed suicide for failing his ancestors. Even
Hiroshi, Daisuke, Sayuka, and Yuri had not been heard from since their
double marriage - and for the life of him, Ranma could not remember
which one had married which.
Again, some of this would work as a last paragraph or so (kind of a
far-fetched 'where are they now' thing, like the ending of 'Animal
House'). In the middle, you just make the reader uncertain about
how seriously he or she is supposed to take this.
Akane and Ukyo enjoyed sharing the responsibility of raising his son.
"Enjoyed sharing"?
"What do you MEAN, two only?"
"This is for the parents of the child. Our apologize, Mrs.
Saotome, but he is not your son..."
Here you pose the question, but don't answer it, about the legal
status of the son. Is he legally illegitimate, with concomittant
social disadvantages in Japan? Or is he, on paper, Akane's child?
For a tragedy, this part _must_ be plausible; for certain kinds
of comedy it need not be.
"Daddy? Why didn't you marry mommy like everyone else's parents did?"
Again, if plausibility is important you need to be clear in your
own mind how old the boy is here, and what he's been told growing up.
"Nuh-uh. Strangers got names, mommy and daddy got names, friends got
names, but you're none of those. You're just 'lady'."
<clip>
"Konatsu. He's a friend, so he's got a name. But Ukyo says
you're the lady of the house. So you're 'lady'."
While darkly humorous, in a way, given a LOT of suspension of
disbelief, this is completely implausible. What was the boy told
growing up? Nothing at all, about the woman who "shared the
responsibility of raising" him?
Kasumi scowled. "There are laws against this kind of thing."
Well, you grab out attention with this one...
"Very well." Kasumi symbolically snapped her handheld scheduling
computer shut. "Meet me at the front door at 11 PM next
Wednesday. The
surveillance will be down for maintenance at that time, and
no one will
be using the machines. If anyone asks, tell them that I'm
giving you a
tour of the hospital. I did invent the procedure, so everyone will
believe that I'm just showing it off if they don't see me
actually using it on you."
So Kasumi agrees, just like that, after being mildly OOC for
the entire scene. And what was the point of all this?
It's not funny, particularly; it just seems like round-about
Akane-bashing, given the way you use it later.
"Ranma...you're so cold..."
<clip>
"Maybe. Ranma's awfully cold and stiff this morning."
A thought struck Ukyo, but she smiled it off. "Eh, you finally killed
him."
"You think so?!?!?"
Ukyo blinked. "Of course not. I mean...you *did* check his pulse,
right, so you know he's not...you didn't..."
Akane applied two fingers to his neck.
"Is he..."
Akane nodded. "I...I didn't even think about it...he just
collapsed, I
thought he was just exhausted...you're right, Ukyo. *I* killed him."
With a little work, this could be quite funny, in a very black
sort of way. It had _better_ be funny, given that both women's
reaction is extremely OOC if you meant this seriously (Akane would
be suicidal; Ukyou would be willing to oblige).
What you seem to be trying for here is Gary Kleppe's line:
"Ranma is dead. Oh well, what's for breakfast?"
"Let the record show that Ranma Saotome died of natural causes,
specifically heart failure. The motion by Akane Saotome to convict
Akane Saotome of murder is hereby dismissed."
Amusing, but implausible. Akane is Japanese; suicide is _MUCH_
more acceptable there than here, and not done in this way.
"One last piece of Ranma survives."
Suddenly, Akane no longer felt like celebrating.
Huh? Why not?
"You've got some balls, Akane. Coming around here after what do *did*
to my wife!"
Tofu-sensei saying this? 'OOC' is no longer quite adequate.
If nothing else, given that Kasumi is now apparently an M.D., he
should be quite used to her agonizing over a lot of professional
decisions.
Akane dared not look her childhood crush in the eyes.
"Do you have *any* idea how long she agonized about it, both
before and after the deed itself? Time was, she'd do anything
for you. But you have crossed the line."
Neither funny nor plausible, which means it comes across as
Akane-bashing. If Kasumi invented such a procedure, she'd
be agonizing over decisions like this every week.
"Dr. Tofu, please. I'm just here for my checkup results."
"And they asked me to deliver 'em because they knew I'd tell you what
they wanted to say - but only I have an excuse. You've bungled it
again, Akane. First it was steroids, this time...the child's
chance of survival is 30 percent. Odds are, if you carry this to
birth, the child will be stillborn. And your chance of survival
ain't that rosy either. You'll have to abort."
Now _this_ is tragedy, and doesn't fit into a comedy (except
possibly as preliminaries, but the eventual joke had better
be _damn_ good).
And Tofu is still OOC: "bungled it again"?
"Don't get me started, doc. And it'll be a niece, I can tell."
Tofu peered closer at the images. "How can you be sure?"
"Look here, and here, and you can start to see the line here."
"...you're right. I never would have thought to check there."
"Let's just say I've had experience with gender-ambiguous
people before. Lots and lots of experience."
Funny, once, briefly. It doesn't last, because 'implausible'
is really inadequate for Ukyou showing a doctor how to interpret
ultrasounds.
"Push, Akane, PUSH!"
"I am pushing. ERRGH! Lousy good-for-nothing painkillers, why'd they
have to not work on ME?"
"The doctor told you. You've trained your senses so well, your body
kicks out any attempt to dull them. Payback's a bitch, huh?"
Maybe I missed something, but did we ever get told why Ukyou stopped
with one child?
The echo of the earlier scene is amusing.
"Is that what he GAAAH! said? Had a hard time translating his jargon.
ERRGH! Where's Ranma, anyway?"
Ukyo faltered for a moment, but maintained her grip on Akane's hand.
"He'd be here if he could, honest. Now PUSH!"
This part of the echo doesn't quite work as either black humor or
tragedy. Black humor would require that his dug-up body is sitting
around nearby (think Chevy Chase's initial 'Vacation' movie, with
grandmother strapped to her rocker). Tragedy would required that
you NOT echo the rest of the earlier scene.
"Congratulations. It's a girl."
"...Akane?"
Black humor requires a bit more here: "'...Akane?' Ukyou put
two fingers to Akane's neck, then pulled a sheet over her
face. 'Oh, well.' " And to be completely plausible, Akane'd
have to have made an issue about giving birth at home rather
than a hospital.
Tragedy requires a white-faced Ukyou watching doctors race
around trying to save Akane.
"Legally, this child is not yours."
<clip>
"...I'll be leaving now. Good day."
Overdone scene. One minor lawyer joke and establishing that
Ukyou is Akane's heir doesn't need this many words.
"Come on, you two, we're going to visit your mommy's and daddy's
marker."
"She ain't my mommy. Never was."
"And she ain't my mommy *or* my daddy. You're the only
parent I've ever had, mamma Ukyo, and I love you as much as he
loved you *and* his daddy."
"Do not."
"Do too."
Ukyo rested her head in her hands. Perhaps she would not take them to
see the grave after all. Perhaps she would go alone this time; only
those that respected the dead would be there. Which was now an
audience of only her and Shampoo.
Disrespectful children can be funny, but these are simply appalling.
They're hard to follow, too, which needs work. Ukyou strikes
me as OOC in tolerating such behavior, which means that this only
works as the sort of 'implausibility-humor' I alluded to above.
Unfortunately, the last paragraph reverses course again, to melodrama
or tragedy. If you're using 'implausibility-humor', you have to
END with it, not veer back actually respecting the dead. And did
you really keep Shampoo around just for this?