This, my friends, is an example of what to AVOID doing when in real-life
situations. Thankfully, when I submitted this, my teacher found it funny
and gave me an A, but still...too risky.
Again, this is an example of how horribly bad it is to let an obsession
interrupt your professional life.
Read, and take notes.
/////////////////////////////
James Lee Charles Werness, Jr.
Maj. McDermit
English II
Period 5
4/10/00
Vocabulary List # 25
1. I've no doubt been quite irksome in my extensively long vocabulary
submissions in the past. I just can't stop, though! I LOVE writing! I'm
just as annoying to myself as I am to you, though, so don't think that I'm
not trying to stop myself.
2. Crap. I feel the need to write ABOUT something again. I'm warning
you: if you value your time, just mark this paper with a 60 - a D minus -
and go on about your business. If you sit here wasting time reading my
incessant ramblings, don't blame me. I warned you.
Feudal Japan was a time for many militant leaders to make
their rise among the nobility of Japan. Their powerful armies and
aggressive strategies clashed, and often only one was left standing.
3. The Saotome and the Tendo houses were among the highest placed noble
families in Japan. However, amongst all the fighting going on around them,
they managed to peacefully settle their differences with each other. You
see, the Saotome and Tendo houses dealt exclusively with each other, and
when a daimyo or lord tried to take over one of the houses' land or
property, they were swiftly crushed by the might of the combined houses.
Nevertheless, the hostile parties had perseverance, and eventually wore the
two houses down in fighting strength. The constant, continuing attacks had
taken their toll.
4. Soun Tendo and Genma Saotome headed the Tendo and Saotome houses,
respectively. They had come to a decision: they had too much land to defend
with the number of troops they had. There was only one option: unify the
houses by marriage. Ranma Saotome was the son and heir to the Saotome
house, but he neglected his duties of state to practice the martial arts,
something he had been interested in since he was very small. Genma didn't
like that aspect of his son, so he thought that marrying him off to a Tendo
daughter would not only unify the houses, but also place the burden of
duties of the state on him, forcing him away from those foolish martial
arts. Akane Tendo was the youngest daughter of Soun Tendo, with two older
sisters, Kasumi - the oldest - and Nabiki - the middle child. Soun didn't
like the fact that he had only daughters, but his wife had died before she
could produce a proper heir for him, and he couldn't really complain about
something that was out of his control. So, he decided that marrying off one
of his daughters to the Saotome boy was better than letting one of them
marry into some strange family. Anyways, Akane liked swordplay. The
smooth, graceful movements of the samurai had fascinated her ever since she
was small. Her sisters and her father frowned upon practicing with the
sword, but she didn't care. She only practiced in secret when they tried to
stop her, so they wouldn't find out. Soun thought that marrying Akane off
to Ranma would get her to stop playing with those swords and start being a
traditional Japanese woman. After all, what kind of husband would Ranma be
if he didn't mold Akane into the picture perfect wife? (Yes, all of this
information is pertinent to the story. If it didn't have anything to do
with the story, I wouldn't put it in here, okay? Wait a minute. IDIOT! Of
COURSE this has a purpose! Ever heard of a little thing called
'exposition'? Geez, what a moron! (Not you, Mr. McDermit. :-)))
5. Thus the marriage was arranged, and the teenagers (yes, they were
both 16) were informed.
Kasumi climbed the stairs, noticing her father standing
outside of Akane's door - which, might I add, had a large katana blade
protruding from it - with a look of sheer terror on his face. Kasumi made a
point of glancing at the sword sticking out of the door as she asked
innocently "Did you tell Akane?"
6. "Boy!" roared Genma. "You will marry her, or my name isn't Genma R.
Saotome!"
"It isn't, dad," retorted Ranma, who hadn't even moved from
the lotus position he was in. "You don't have a middle name, let alone one
that starts with an R."
Genma rolled this over in his head for a few seconds before
responding. "Fine. You win this time, Ranma, but this only goes to show
you how I am your subsidiary when it comes to knowledge."
Ranma opened his eyes and looked at his father
questioningly. "Why did you use 'subsidiary'? It means the same thing as
inferior, only inferior works better in this situation, as subsidiary
generally means something of second importance when dealing with a company
controlled by another."
"I don't know. I just had the urge to use 'subsidiary."
Scratching his chin, he continued. "I wonder why..."
(Meanwhile, the author lets out a bellowing, maniacal laugh
that can be heard for miles around as he plots his next evil vocabulary
sentence. Mrs. Kohler, the librarian, shushes him quickly, though, making
the author blush furiously and continue his reign of evil more quietly this
time.)
7. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAnywho, the marriage was being planned and the
parties to be involved were being...persuaded to agree to the marriage when
something outrageously futile and completely irrelevant to the plot
happened: the Fort McCoy trip returned and the author totally forgot where
he was going with this story.
Then something equally unimportant happened: but
that's not important, so I'll skip it.
The Saotome house was in disarray as Ranma battled his
father (figuratively. Ranma would KILL Genma in a fistfight.) over who was
right about the whole arranged marriage thing.
"No way, pop! There's NO way I'm gonna marry someone I've
never met!"
Genma chuckled as he reached behind a curtain and pulled
Akane out. "Very well. Akane, Ranma. Ranma, Akane. Now you've met. You
can get married."
Akane blink-blinked. "What am I doing here?"
Ranma kicked his father into the next sentence. "Sorry
about this. The old man doesn't know when to stop." He bowed formally and
introduced himself "I'm Ranma Saotome, the guy you're supposed to marry."
As Akane began to glow a light blue - something Ranma recognized as a battle
aura, something to be feared when facing an opponent in a martial arts match
- he quickly added "I'm against the marriage too! It's stupid for them to
make us marry!"
Akane blink-blinked again. "Oh, is that so? Daddy told me
that you were the one who asked to marry me."
This time it was Ranma's turn to blink-blink. "What? I
never said that."
Akane shrugged. "Whatever. But, I have one thing to ask:
do you practice the art of the sword?"
Ranma regarded the short girl in front of him curiously. "I
used to, but I don't anymore. Why?"
Akane again shrugged, and this time sat down on the floor.
"I noticed that you dropped into a ready stance when my battle aura flared,
and I recognized the style of that stance, so I wondered if you were a
samurai. I wanted to know where you learned the anything-goes style."
Ranma was surprised. This girl recognized his style just
from the stance? "Well, I don't really practice with a sword anymore. I've
adapted the style to barehanded fighting. It's much stronger in my opinion
because the enemy doesn't know where the attack is coming from, where if
you're using a sword, they know that you're going to use the sword."
Akane looked up at Ranma sharply. "Are you saying that the
art of fighting with a sword is inferior to fighting bare-handed?"
"Well, not OFFICIALLY, but in my opinion..."
"Enough! I know a challenge when I hear one! On guard!"
Akane leapt to her feet, a sword appearing from nowhere.
Ranma just opened his eyes a little in surprise, but
otherwise didn't react.
Akane fumed, her battle aura flaring brighter. "I'm not
playing around, you know! I'm pretty good with this thing! You'd better
take me seriously, or you could get hurt."
Ranma smirked. "Doubtful."
While Ranma meant that as an expression of his own fighting
abilities, Akane took it as an insult to her fighting abilities, and
attacked furiously.
Ranma effortlessly avoided the attack by disarming Akane
with a swift kick to her forearm that was, while hard enough to make her
drop the sword, controlled as to avoid hurting her.
Ranma picked up the sword and handed it hilt-first to Akane,
saying "See? I didn't mean to insult you, but the advantages of barehanded
fighting are clear."
Akane just dropped to her knees. "I...lost?"
Ranma smiled and sat down next to her. "Don't fret. You're
really good, actually. But you use a sword. If you'd drop the sword, you'd
be a formidable fighter."
Akane lowered her head. "But I lost. I'm a bad fighter. I
lost."
Ranma took on a look of concern and put his arm around her.
"Hey, hey, hey, now. You're not bad by any means. I'm just good. Really
good. I've been practicing for a long, long time. Since I was about 5,
actually."
Akane looked up to Ranma, tears in her eyes. "But I lost!
I LOST! Don't you get it? The one thing I wanted to be good at, the one
thing I could be besides a housewife, and I'm bad! I lost!"
Ranma really felt bad now, and he didn't feel any better
when she started crying. "Hey, stop crying. Really. You're good!" Nope.
She kept on crying. "Um...I'm on amphetamines. That's why I won." Nope.
Not that either. "I was abducted by aliens who implanted cybernetic limbs
into my body and that's why I'm so quick and strong." Damn. Nothing seemed
to work. Finally, Ranma just left it up to fate and one last gamble.
"You're too cute to be crying, Akane. You really shouldn't. You're much
prettier when you're not crying."
THAT worked. "Wha...what did you say?" she asked as she
stared up at Ranma with big brown eyes.
"I said that you're cuter when you don't cry."
Akane took a couple of minutes to digest this information,
then acted on instinct. "The meaning of the word 'synopsis' is 'a condensed
statement or outline of a lengthier work,' as in 'the synopsis of Romeo and
Juliet is much shorter than the full play, and still covers the key
points.'"
"..."
"..."
"...What?" Ranma finally asked.
"I don't know. I just acted on instinct, I guess, and that
was what my instincts told me to do."
"Um...but why would that be instinctual? Is there some
higher power that dictates what our instincts are?"
"I don't know. Let's find out. HEY YOU UP THERE!" shouted
Akane. "IF YOU CONTROL OUR INSTINCTS, PROVE IT!!!"
Akane immediately grabbed Ranma and kissed him fiercely,
passionately, and for a long, long time. After their lips disentangled,
Akane and Ranma both blushed and turned away from each other, saying "I
guess so..."
After several moments of silence (well, silence to the
mortals. The gods, however, heard more maniacal laughter originating with
the author of this evil, sadistic, and downright weird vocabulary sentence
compilation.), Ranma reached over to Akane and pulled her into another kiss.
After the kiss ended, Akane asked Ranma "What was that? We
didn't ask for two demonstrations."
Ranma blushed again and said "Yeah, I know. I...wanted to
do that."
More silence for the mortals (and more maniacal laughter for
the gods, followed by pointed coughing and wheezing, and then a loud
THUMP!), and Akane pulled Ranma into an embrace, which Ranma returned
wholeheartedly.
8. TWO HOURS LATER...
"Um...Ranma? Do you believe in love at first
sight?"
Ranma smiled. "I do now, Akane. I do now."
Akane smiled as she nestled in his powerful arms.
"As do I, Ranma. As do I."
They stayed that way for another couple of minutes until
Ranma broke the silence. "So, I guess the marriage is going to happen after
all, then?"
Akane blink-blinked for the third time in this story. "What
gives you that idea? I mean, yeah, I love you, but we just met two hours
ago.
"I know, but we just had sex, so I assumed..."
"WOAH WOAH WOAH! Who said we had sex?"
"Well, the story DID skip two hours, and you ARE nestled in
my arms..."
"Yeah, but it hasn't been established if we have our clothes
on yet!"
"I know, but I assumed..."
"That's your problem, pervert. We didn't have sex."
"How do you know? You don't know any more than I do in this
situation. For all you know, we could have had sex three times, and could
be resting to get ready for a fourth."
Akane blushed. "I just...know, that's all."
Ranma was dubious at best. "Well, let's ask the author,
just to make sure, okay?"
"Alright. HEY, MISTER AUTHOR! DID WE HAVE SEX?"
The only thing that answered them was a booming...silence.
Then, out of nowhere, they heard a faint voice. It said "We're sorry, but
the author of this story isn't available right now. He laughed maniacally
one too many times, and has suffered a heart attack. He should be back in a
couple of weeks, so please call back then."
There was a chorus of voices saying "Damn."
"Well...um...did we?"
"I...don't know. Did we?"
"...Let's see if we have any clothes on."
"...okay...you check yourself first."
Ranma blushed as he patted Akane's back. "I can't check
myself without checking you first, you know. You're in my way."
Akane blushed as well. "Oh, yeah. Um..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Aw, screw this!" Ranma thrust Akane away from him,
turning around at the same time, and looking down to see...
THE NEXT VOCABULARY WORD!!!!!!
Antiquity: relics or monuments of ancient times or matters
relating to life or culture of ancient times.
Example: 'the precious antiquity was returned to the science
museum. The coin had been found in a dig in Egypt, almost 50 years ago, and
depicted their main lawmaking building.'
9. Ranma didn't like that little twist thrown into the story, so he
went on a rampage of sorts, and he kind of killed the shogun.
After all of that, he worked his way back to Akane, who was
still trying to figure out if they had sex. Using all of the modern
scientific methods of research, she had come close to an answer.
"If the physics of sex are a constant, and the law of
conservation of energy is taken as true, then the answer is..."
"Hey, Akane! I'm back!"
"BWAAAAAAAAAK!" Akane jumped and dropped her notes into the
fire, startled by Ranma's sudden appearance.
"Hey, Akane? You okay? Hope I didn't scare you."
Akane glared at him and shouted "Idiot! I lost all of my
research because of your startling me like that!"
Ranma looked at the fire skeptically. "Research? On what?"
"On whether or not we had sex, idiot!"
Ranma blushed. "Oh. I found that out a long time ago."
"Really?" Akane jumped down from the ceiling, landing in
front of Ranma. "Well, did we?"
"..." Ranma fidgeted awkwardly, before stepping aside to
reveal a small girl who looked to be about 5 years old. "Akane, I'd like
you to meet your daughter, Rei."
Akane was clearly in shock. "I'm a...mother?"
"Yes. I found out just after I left. I-"
Sirens blared, and a car that looked to be an ambulance
drove on scene. Men in black suits jumped out and grabbed Akane, Ranma and
Rei, one of them holding out a piece of paper.
The one holding the piece of paper spoke as the three family
members (well, sort of) were handcuffed. "Fiction police. You've violated
paragraph 23 section 4a subsection 3b. You started off as a serious story
then slipped into farcical jokes such as the birthing of Rei by the male in
the relationship, Ranma. Compliance will result in a quick and painless
death; if you do not go along with our wishes, your death will be as painful
as we can persuade the author to write."
10. "ALRIGHT, THAT'S IT!!!"
Akane hammered her hand into her...other hand. NO! She hammered
her fist into her hand. NO! She...fisted her hammer into her...
"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!" Roared Akane. "I'M SICK OF THIS
FARCE CRAP! THE JOKES AREN'T EVEN FUNNY!!!" Akane again fisted her hammer
into the space of her right pinky finger. "I CALL FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF
ANIME CHARACTERS TO CONVENE!!!" She whirled to point a finger at the sky.
"AND YOU!!! YOU'RE GONNA GET IT, BUSTER! BET YOU DIDN'T THINK I NOTICED
THAT 'FISTED HER HAMMER' CRAP, DID YOU?"
......well, I'd love to tell you what happened next, but the
adjectives required to describe the level of carnage visited upon the author
have been outlawed in all 50 states. So, I'll just skip ahead a little.
"Now that the AAC has gotten together, maybe we could discuss
something?" Akane was seated at the head of the table, with Ranma next to
her, providing them with the opportunity to make out whenever they weren't
being spoken to. ...Which they took advantage of, mind you.
Asuka Langley Sorhyu spoke up next. "Well, what's the big deal? I
was just about to kill the entire EVA series single-handedly when you called
this meeting!"
At the sound of muffled moaning, all heads turned to Ranma and Akane
(or should I say, Rakane or Akanma ;) hehe. Sorry) making out like...two
people in love who are making out.
Asuka turned beet red and screamed "IDIOTEN! DAS BOOT! KEINE
SPRECHEN! EINS ZWEI DREI!"
Shinji just turned to Rei and proposed marriage, spouting some crap
about Rei being his 'light in the dark,' his 'water in the desert,' and his
'soul mate.' It just so happened that that was all true, and Shinji really
DID love her, which is what saved his backside.
"Yes, Ikari-kun, I will marry you. I love you as well."
Then, of course, Lina Inverse got pissed off at another of Gourry's
inadvertent insults to her breast size, and threw a monstrous fireball,
incinerating Gourry, Zelgadis, Asuka, Misato, Happosai, Kirin, the OTHER Rei
(Sailor Moon's Rei), and a host of other anime characters.
Amidst the carnage, a single voice rang out. "What is the point of
this, anyways? I mean, the story has gone to hell, you aren't even coming
CLOSE to a coherent thought, and you're just wasting time. What's this all
about?"
The author scratched his head in confusion. "I dunno."
Akane poked her head out of under the remains of the table. "Well,
then, can you give Ranma and I some privacy, please?"
"I'm hungry!" Lina Inverse piped up.
"SWEETO!!!" Happosai grabbed Rei's (from Sailor Moon) brassiere and
ran off.
The author merely shook his head. "Dang anime characters. I forgot
that they're almost all perverted and/or teenagers. ...Which is pretty much
the same thing, when you think about it."
He continued to write one or two last sentences, just to achieve the
result he wanted from this long-ass paper.
Ranma and Akane got married and lived happily ever after.
Rei and Shinji got married and lived happily ever after.
Lina found an all-you-can-eat buffet for $1.99 and lived happily
ever after.
The author severely warped the mind of Maj. McDermit, and felt
genuinely sorry for that.
/////////////////////////////////
See what I mean?
hehe. And no, warning you what not to do was not my only reason for posting
this. I actually liked some of the jokes in this...thing, and I was
wondering if you found them even mildly amusing.
Ja!
Chaz