"Werness, Charlie" <h17@SJNMA.ORG> wrote:
This is my second attempt at sending this out. MS word is evil to the very
epicenter of it's being - or so I'm told - so I've reverted to notepad and
cutting and pasting. If this doesn't work, then I'll just attach the .txt
file to a mail, I guess.
Two words: Much better. I can actually read it now. And, no, I didn't
intend to tell you to abandon Word entirely, just to disable some of its worst
features. It _does_ have a few useful features--the ability to convert .txt
files to html format, for instance. (Of course, this will only work correctly
if the smart quotes, etc. have been turned off. And it's sometimes necessary
to alter the html file directly.) For a Word Processor, I prefer WordPerfect,
and not just because the Linux version is a free download.
<snip remaining author's notes>
********************
This is an alternate universe fic. It deals with what would have happened
if Soun Tendo had taken his son,
Ranma, on an extended training trip after Ranma's mother died when he was
six. Also, Genma Saotome wanted
to take his youngest daughter on a similar training trip when she was six,
but Nodoka Saotome, mother to
Kasumi, Nabiki and Akane Saotome, and wife to Genma Saotome, wouldn't let
him. She kept Genma from leaving
until Nodoka died. The day he was to leave, however...
So the children were born to the oppisite sets of parents? Interesting
concept, but I'm not sure what you can do with it. Have to read and find out,
I guess.
What the Fuck?: Chapter 1
'What the Fuck?'
"In China. Bringing Ranma. Tendo." Genma read the card aloud.
"Who's that from, dad?" inquired Akane, who was just now getting
over her mother's death.
"It's from my old friend, Soun Tendo. He's coming from China with
Ranma."
Akane looked at her travel pack, at her father's. "We're not going
to be here. How are they going
to get into the house?"
Genma tucked the letter into his pack and swung it up onto his
shoulder. "Kasumi and Nabiki will be
here. They'll let them in and keep them company until we get back."
That last got Akane's attention. "Speaking of which, how long will
we be gone?"
Genma and walked out the door. "Not *too* long..."
The door opened to reveal two soaking-wet men.
Kasumi smiled sweetly and asked, "May I help you?"
The older man said, "Is this the Saotome residence?'
"Why, yes, it is. You wouldn't happen to be Soun and Ranma Tendo,
would you?"
The younger man looked up at Kasumi, a slight blush on his cheeks.
"Sorry about this."
Nabiki and Kasumi sat across the table from Ranma and Soun, talking.
"So, why exactly did you choose to visit now?" Nabiki asked
sharply.
Kasumi looked to her younger sister, concern on her face. Nabiki
hadn't been the same since mother
died...
"Well, Ranma and I had been on the road for ten years, and Ranma had
come of age to marry, so I
thought I'd bring him here to marry and run our dojo."
"Ten years? That's a long time! Why did you leave for so long?"
"After his mother died, he didn't have any reason to stay. He was
destined to inherit the dojo, and
he could still attend school while on the road, so I decided to take him on
an extended training trip to
hone his martial arts skills.'
Is there a reason that's a single quote? Or is it just a typo?
"Oh, my. When did you wife die, Mister Tendo?"
When did _your_ wife die. Missing the r.
"Ten years ago," replied Soun.
Nabiki glared at him, while Kasumi looked confused and Ranma shook
his head.
"...Um, dad? I think she meant how old was I when she died. She
already knows that she died ten
years ago."
Soun looked at Ranma, then back at Kasumi. "Oh! Forgive me. I
misunderstood. Ranma was six."
"So that means you're sixteen, Ranma?" was Nabiki's first
non-hostile comment to either of the
Tendos.
"Well, I'll be seventeen in three months."
Kasumi smiled and said "How nice! You're about Nabiki's age! Maybe
you two could become friends!"
Nabiki commented dryly "He's closer to Akane's age, Kasumi.
Besides, Mr. Tendo already said he came
back to get married, which implies that he's engaged."
Ranma blushed. "Er...yeah, I'm engaged to-"
"You mean you don't know?!?" Soun stammered.
"Know what, Mr. Tendo?" Kasumi asked sweetly.
Nabiki chimed in. "Yes, know what?"
Soun sweat dropped.
"Aaskyourfatherwhenhegetshomeohlookatthetimeletsgoranma" and Soun grabbed
Ranma and sprinted out the door.
"..."
"..."
"Oh, my. I hope everything's alright."
Nabiki got up and closed the door. "If what I think is right, then
daddy's going to have some
explaining to do."
That's one way to put it....
"Welcome to Jusenkyo, sir and madam. This the place of-"
"Let's go, Akane." Genma interrupted the guide and jumped onto a
bamboo pole sticking out of
a pool of water.
"Dad!" Akane said as she leaped to a similar pole to face her
father. "What if he had something
important to say?"
"You're a martial artist, Akane. Are you afraid of a little water?"
Akane's visage hardened and she assumed a ready stance. "I 'aint
afraid of nuthin'. Let's go."
Not even cats? Though I suppose that incident couldn't have occured with
Nodaka still being around to mitigate some of Genma's wilder ideas. Which
brings up an interesting question. From what little I know of her character,
Nodaka seems to expect girls to be proper ladies. She tries to get 'Ranko'
and Akane to behave in less of a tomboy manner. It might be interesting to
see a flashback at some point showing how Genma finally convinced her to let
him train Akane.
Genma smiled to himself as he readied to spar with Akane. He had
hit a button. Akane never spoke
with bad grammar unless angered.
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!"
*SPLASH*
"Oh no! You fall in spring of..."
"Ranma!" Nabiki exclaimed, startled. "What are you doing here?"
Ranma scratched his head and said "Pop wanted me to go to school, so
he enrolled me here
at Furinkan."
Nabiki just blinked. "Okay. Um...where are you staying, by the way?
Kasumi was wondering
last night after you left so suddenly."
"Oh. Sorry about that by the way." Ranma stretched his back.
"Remember when my dad said
that I was to inherit the dojo? Well, that's where we're living. The
Tendo
dojo is just a couple of
blocks from here."
Nabiki blinked. "Okay."
What the Fuck?: Chapter 2
'What's going on?'
About what the reader is asking at this point.
"So, Nabiki?" Ranma asked. "Where are all of these classes?" He
handed her his schedule.
"Japanese history...algebra 2...English 1? Ranma, most of these
classes are for sophomores, and
the rest are for freshmen, except for English 1, which is for seventh
graders." Nabiki looked to Ranma,
awaiting an explanation.
Then how is he even able to take it at a high school?
Also, you may want to find someone who's familiar with the Japanese school
system to explain a little of it. From what I've picked up based on various
comments on the list, high school is for three years. I don't believe the
classification of 'sophomore' exists.
"..."
With none forthcoming, she took the initiative. "Aren't you
supposed to be a junior? You're
going to be seventeen soon, right?"
Ranma scratched the back of his head and laughed nervously.
"Well...you see...the thing
is...I'm stupid. NO! I'm not stupid, it's just that I've always
concentrated so hard on my martial
arts abilities that I've never really had time for school."
"English one?" Nabiki was shocked. "For you not to have enough
time for ENGLISH ONE, you must've
gotten really, REALLY good with all that time you put into it."
Ranma just shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Not many people can beat me.
I actually haven't lost for
close to three years, now."
Now Nabiki was REALLY surprised. "Three years? Wow! Kuno might
finally have a worthy MALE
competitor."
"Kuno?" asked Ranma.
"He's right-"
"*WHITHER MY PIG-TAILED GODDESS?!?*" roared a loud voice, startling
Nabiki into Ranma's arms.
Ranma just stood there, in shock, as Nabiki buried her face in his
muscled chest.
<So warm...I could stay here for...wait...where am I...Ranma asked
who Kuno was...I was going
to point him out when a loud voice startled me into...> Nabiki jumped back,
blushing fiercely.
"Um...sorry it was an accident...I just got startled. You know how jumpy
women are about loud noises.
Heh heh heh..."
Odd reaction from Nabiki. At least the Nabiki we see in the manga. I would
think it would take more than this to fluster her.
Ranma just blushed and said, "Yeah, I know. Don't worry about it."
Despite his words, he
couldn't hide the fact that he was flustered from the encounter.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"*NABIKI TENDO!!!*" a voice roared from right behind her, putting
Nabiki once again in Ranma's
arms. "Run not from me, Nabiki Tendo! I require the whereabouts of the
pig-tailed one, the beautiful
Akane Tendo!"
Nabiki flew back from Ranma, blushing an even deeper shade of red,
right into the man, sending them
both to the ground.
Ranma stepped forward to help them up when the man jumped up, pulled
a wooden sword from nowhere,
and slashed at Ranma.
Ranma deftly avoided the blow by flipping over the man. "Woah!
What's your problem, buddy?"
The man spun and slashed, Ranma again nimbly sidestepping the blow.
"Silence wretch! That thou
wouldst treat a woman so harshly reveals your vile nature! Enemy of
women!"
He slashed at Ranma again,
Ranma just using Kuno's momentum to flip him over his shoulder, disarming
him.
You use a present tense verb her (using) when the rest of the story has been
told in past tense.
"Listen, guy. I don't know what our problem is, but I'm not an
enemy to women, and I'm not your
enemy."
The may just stared at his now-stilled sword, mouth agape. "You
The may? I don't know what you mean.
stopped my attack with your
bare hands!" He looked up at Ranma, saying, "Sorcerer! Only by magically
enhancing your body could
you do such a thing!" He dashed foreward, wrenching the wooden instrument
from Ranma's grasp. "Knave!
It is customary to give one's name before a battle. Mine I shall give. I
am Tatewaki Kuno, junior,
group E. The rising star of the high school kendo league, I am known
as..."
thunder crashed as
lightning played across the suddenly-cloudy sky "...the Blue Thunder of
Furinkan High!!!"
If it's customary to introduce oneself before battle, shouldn't he do so
before attacking Ranma?
Murmurs swept through the crowd (That usually watched Akane thwomp
Kuno, but found this new
challenger just as interesting). "Blue Thunder? When did he start
calling himself that?"
"Isn't he the Shooting Star?"
"How does he make thunder crash like that?"
Further comments were forestalled by Kuno pointing his sword at
Ranma, saying "For the crime
of treating Nabiki Tendo rudely shall you be punished!"
Ranma blinked. "Hey, Nabiki. Did I treat you rudely?"
Nabiki shrugged as she stood next to Ranma. "Nope. I'll bet he
thinks that you pushed me
into him, while I actually jumped into him."
Kuno was upon them. "Away from her, swine!"
Ranma planted his left foot, ducked and swept his right foot around,
tripping Kuno. Even as
Kuno hit the ground, Ranma had begun a punch that knocked him out swiftly.
So Ranma hit him while he was down?
Nabiki looked at Kuno, at Ranma. She took his hand and led him
towards the school. "Come
on. We have to get to class."
"Aiya! Husband, wait!!!"
A purple-haired amazon was chasing a man and a Nissan Pathfinder
down a road in China. The Pathfinder didn’t have a driver, which was
strange enough without noting the fact that it was wearing glasses on it’s
windshield and had bits of food stuck in it’s front grate.
wearing glasses on it is windshield? If you want the possesive form of it,
remove the apostrophe.
"Stupid amazon! I didn't mean to beat you! I acidentally hit you
with the rock that I
threw at my dad! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"
The Nissan swerved and almost ran the man over.
"Geez! Okay, okay! I'm sorry, dad, but you made me mad, what with
the Jusenkyo curses and
all!" The truck honked once, a short, not-happy-sounding honk. "YOU
DESERVED IT!!!"
Shampoo made a leaping tackle for the man, which he barely avoided.
"Daddy! Open up your
passenger-side front door!" The truck obliged (much to the astonishment of
the farmers observing this
from their fields) and the man jumped in, yelling "Thanks!"
As a stand-alone joke, the Spring of Drowned Nissan Pathfinder was funny once.
If you have a main character cursed from that spring, you're going to have to
answer a lot of questions that can be ignored when it's just a joke. What
happens when it gets hit with hot water and someone's inside? What about
gasoline? Does it come with a full or empty tank? If empty, how does it
first start up in the wilderness? I doubt a fill up is possible at Jusenkyo.
What happens to the gas and other fluids when he changes back? They should
poisen him.
Speeding up, the Nissan Pathfinder raced away, over a river and
through some woods.
The purple-haired woman got up, said, "Aiya! To Grandmother’s
house they go!"
The author suffered grievous bodily harm from readers repulsed by
that lame-ass half-joke.
If you must have this comment, I would make it part of a footnote. As is, it
interrupts the flow of the story.
Ranma avoided strike after strike, each miss wearing Soun out more
and more. Finally, breathing heavily, Soun signaled the end of the
sparring
match. "Ranma," Soun gasped, "you’ve been my better in the art for almost
four years now. Don’t you think you should let me win every once in a
while, just for a change of pace?"
Ranma just smiled and said, "No, dad, I don’t. If I’m going to
lose, it’s going to be to someone who is my better. I don’t throw fights."
Soun walked over to Ranma and placed a sweaty hand on his shoulder.
"Change of topic, Ranma. About your engagement to one of the Saotome
daughters: what do you think about the fact that they don’t know?"
"Well, it’s weird that Mr. Saotome wouldn’t tell them that they’re
engaged to someone they’ve never met."
"That’s what I’m thinking. Well, all we can do is wait until Genma
gets back, right?"
And Soun told Ranma when, exactly? In canon, neither father told his
child(ren) until just before the meeting.
"Yeah, I guess."
Soun was about to turn when he remembered something that had been at
the back of his mind for a while. "What do you think about Kasumi and
Nabiki, Ranma?"
Ranma turned away to hide his blush, saying, "Nabiki is...cute..."
and
walked towards the door of the dojo.
Soun smiled at this son’s back. "It’s good that you like Nabiki,
Ranma. I’d hate to make you marry someone you didn’t love."
Ranma turned at his father’s words. "...Thanks, dad. By the way,
isn’t there another Saotome daughter?"
Soun thought. "...Yes, I believe there is. Akane is her name."
Across the ocean, in China, a man sitting in a Nissan Pathfinder
sneezed.
You seem to have some line break problems about the middle of the fic. I'm
not sure how to fix this problem. Recently, someone posted a link to a
program that's supposed to handle the line wrapping, but I don't recall whom
and didn't keep the link.
Defender of the Light
Elite Mage
Junior Member of the Inner Circle of the Mage's Council
"Contrary to popular opinion, magic and science _do_ mix."
"Of _course_ I cheated. Scientists think magic is cheating, and mages think
most forms of technology are cheating. I use both."
http://nav.to/defender
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