[Sorry if this appears twice]
In <3BC3BA79.A9D9FE80@crosslink.net> The Wanderer <thewanderer@crosslink.net> spake thus:
First, an explanation.
I'm not an author, and haven't got a prayer of becoming one; I'm only
occasionally even barely competent as a rewriter or an editor. But since
getting hooked on fanfiction, I've been coming up with ideas every now
and then, and writing them down.
Perhaps you should give one a try in any case; something small to
begin with - you might be surprised at how well it begins to work out (unless
of course you've already tried and don't like the result? ^_^ ).
[...]
This one's a bit more complicated. You have two canon universes, one
with the Sailor Senshi, the other with the Sailor Scouts, with all (or
at least most) of the differences that implies. The story happens when
one or more of them gets swapped with her counterpart in the other
universe. Language problems may be the least of what could ensue. Pluto
would probably have the worst time in some ways; Neptune or Uranus, if
one but not both of them switched, would have some real problems. The
others could mess things up also, though the problems are less obvious.
This can be done either by telling the story from/of one universe only,
with the events that happen there; or it can be done as a two-universe
story, with both teams trying to adapt to the change of members, win
whatever fight they're currently engaged in, and possibly get their
original teams back (which may not be possible). The latter is
especially interesting if for some reason one of the universes, and
hence its native Sailors, is farther in the future than the other,
including the associated defeat of later enemies. It might even be
possible to have one set of Sailors be in the present day, and the other
already in Crystal Tokyo.
The author can, if desired, provide explanations as to why the switch
took place, but it could work at least almost as well if it were just a
spontaneous event with no discernible cause. It could, of course, be the
work of some new enemy, though why an enemy would want to do it makes
for something of a poser.
This one's been tried several times I believe in various forms,
although only once well IMO in two stories by Richard Rae (_Reality Check_ and
_Grim Reality_), both very much worth the read IMO (you can find them at the
RAAC archive). I also planned (and in fact began) to introduce the same
concept in what turned out to be an unmitigated disaster called _Dark
Chronicles_ (DChr) I started in '96. If you never read it, you're very lucky!
^_^ If you did, I'd very much like you to forget it as quickly as possible :-
) - the original concept was horribly executed and doomed to collapse almost
before it started. That said, I'm completely rewriting it to match _Thy Will
be Done_, a Sailor Moon Expanded Earth-Beta companion story to Mark Latus's
_Thy Kingdom Come_ on which I'm currently working.
As for the linguistic problems you mentioned above: Richard Rae (if I
remember correctly) settled them by having the scouts speak an `anglicised'
Japanese (no honorifics etc.) - I'm tossing up whether to do that in DChr's
rewrite or have the Japanese of the SM-NA (SM-North American as I've termed
it) universe directly equivalent to the English of a typical universe. Just
what their English would then be, God knows!
This one is complicated enough that, rather than try to rephrase it at
the outset, I'll paste in my original overview from my ideas file, like
so:
Either dump (some or all of) the Ranma cast into the Slayers universe
(it's not hard to come up with an excuse for it to happen from their
side, especially if by coincidence someone's casting a summoning spell
on the other side - but please, no clichhs; the Nan-ban mirror has been
overused as a change-the-setting-right-at-the-start tool), or bring the
primary Slayers cast (good guys at least, probably a bad guy or two)
into the Ranma universe.
This has been done (in a sense) in Aaron Bergman's _Slayers
Nibunnoichi_, and I do it also in DChr Ch. 9 or 10 (depending on whether I
introduce another plot-line before returning to Ranma and co.). The premise
is the same as for other interaction of the various DChr Anime universes - a
growing destabilisation of the DChr omniverse leading to `reality faults' as
the basic structure of the omniverse begins to break down.
Your idea itself though is totally different from anything I've seen
and should work, the only problem being the fact that (so far as I understand
it) our universe (and therefore by extension the Ranmaverse) wouldn't be part
of the LoN's domain, which would mean that Lina and co. probably would need
another source for white and black magic unless they could draw on Ceipheed
and Shaburanigdo across possibly incompatible dimensions. Shamanism should
still work so long as the basic metaphysics of the Ranmaverse were close
enough to Slayers but I wouldn't like to be a dragon or mazoku in the
Ranmaverse and so cut off from everything that defined (and possibly allowed
for) my existence.
There is of course the problem of where the Ranma crew (and especially
the big guy himself) will fit on the power scale of the Slayers
universe; I think the best answer there might be to have each side's
special capabilities (the Slayers' version of magic, the Ranma crew's
version of magic plus their ki/chi techniques and some of their weirder
martial arts techniques) be completely unknown in the other universe,
but surprisingly effective/ineffective as appropriate to level things
out enough. (Though I'm not fond of significantly reducing the
higher-end Slayers spells; it sort of ruins the whole point of those
things.)
Definitely agreed.
For my part, I've spent quite some time trying to work out just where
all the variously incompatible animates in DChr fit power-wise and am still
not entirely happy. In my story I can get away with things a bit by defining
the various characters as being `altered' to a certain extent by passing
through an intermediate (and highly malleable) pseudo-reality that did not
exist before the first Fault which ensures their powers remain a close
analogue of what they were in their own respective universes. In reality this
gets problematic as the various incompatible universal prerogatives fight each
to maintain its own characters as pre-eminent: i.e. my Ranmaverse defines
Ranma as always triumphing in the end against almost impossible odds while
the Linaverse does exactly the same for Lina. How do these interact? Not
very happily; in effect the characters undergo initial enhancements of their
respective abilities but once existing partially beyond their native universes
the changes cease. Of course probably this won't work for any other scenario.
For a more general comparison, I'd assume Lina would be *far* beyond
Ranma in sheer destructive power but perhaps Slayers characters (good and bad)
would be vulnerable to Ki attacks (which don't appear to exist in the
Linaverse) as Ranma and co. would be to the kind of overwhelming magical power
the Slayers cast could bring to bear.
A beginning for any Ranma-crew-in-another-universe crossover:
It seems typical among some authors to have such stories begin with the
use of the Nan-ban mirror to accidentally/as a trap put some or all of
the crew in some other universe; I don't much like that, as it seems
like just an excuse to get everybody else out of the way in a hurry so
the author can concentrate on the characters s/he wants to write about.
Again, I couldn't agree more - it worked in the early Ranma fics
simply because it was an obvious plot device, but it's *very* hackneyed now
IMO.
In the same way, I regard my own attempts in DChr's current
incarnation as pathetic to say the least. Ranma's initial displacement in its
rewrite is a combination of contact with a dimensionally displaced fragment of
Yohko's Mamono Hunter dress (which I consider an extension of her soul in the
same way I imagine Senshi fuku are an extension of theirs) and the first
attack on Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep by the qliphothic `anti-real' virago that
will become the story's main enemy once she has disposed of the Outer Gods and
stolen their power and boundless hunger for infinite oblivion for herself.
I would propose something else.
Begin the story with another typical crazy adventure, involving weird
(supernatural-type?) threats to be taken down with high-end martial arts
and whatever else, much as in canon. At what would normally be the end
of such a story, with the bad guy defeated and the crew getting ready to
return home and have things go back to what passes for normal, have
something involved in the preceding story (including possibly even the
Nan-ban mirror) do something unexpected (or be accidentally activated,
or something), dropping whatever characters are appropriate into another
universe and allowing the crossover to begin.
The net effect of this is to get everybody else out of the way so the
author can concentrate on the characters s/he wants to write about; the
important point is that it doesn't do it in such an all-fired hurry as
the other, and avoids the clichh that prompted me to come up with this
idea in the first place. Not to mention the nice reversal effect of
having the *real* story begin at what looks like the end. ^_^
Should work, and I don't recall anything particularly close apart from
a few: `Ranma & Akane attack Demon and Demon displaces them to get them out of
the way so he/she can begin their rain of terror etc. etc. etc.' stories that
really didn't get anywhere and had the problem of having to go jumping back
and forth to explain what said demon then was doing. Yours is far tidier IMO.
If only because of the name, a crossover between Slayers and Buffy the
Vampire Slayer - probably done best by dropping Buffy (and possibly Co.)
into the Slayers universe. The trouble lies in how to handle the
ridiculously out-of-sync power levels of the two canons; one possible
solution would be to have the power level of the Slayer be proportionate
to the power levels of whatever universe she's in at the time. This
almost certainly wouldn't give her magical capabilities, except perhaps
the ability to shrug it off (though with training in Slayers magic, she
*might* be able to draw on the power that lets her do superhuman things
to act as a power source for the magic), but it would enhance her
physical capabilities - strength, speed, agility, resilience, toughness,
reflexes, possibly fighting skill, and any others I've left out - to
astonishing, super-heroic levels.
Hmm; not so sure about this one. Buffy always struck me as a rather
poorly defined and fairly cliched universe (although I admit I've seen very
few eps), nor can I think of anything she might be able to do in the Slayers
universe that the locals couldn't (i.e. what would be the premise for the
story?). Setting all that aside, you're faced with getting her to speak
Japanese, and so you end up with all the typical language cliches unless you
do a Star Trek and use some idiotic deus ex machina to get around the problem
-- the ST Universal Translators are IMO one of the most pathetic plot devices
ever imagined, almost as bad as inter-species breeding being possible (a
C(K?)lingon, Betazoid etc. is going to have infinitely less compatibility with
a human than a mushroom :( -- you can get away with such things in fantasy or
anime where the paradigms are vastly different but *not* IMO in something
claiming to be straight-out SF).
An AMS/Ranma crossover in which Keiichi ends up with a Nyanniichuan
curse (how is left to the discretion of the author). The twist is that
when in female form, for whatever reason (probably something complicated
and cosmic, involving interesting bits of history of the gods), he's a
goddess, despite being perfectly normal-human (in a metaphysical sense)
in male form. This is *not* involving a 'spring of drowned goddess'
(which would be something of a ridiculous concept); it's the same
Nyanniichuan that Ranma fell in. The difference is something to do with
Keiichi.
Or perhaps an incompatibility between his universe and the Ranmaverse
- he isn't a ranmaverse native but got displaced temporarily (perhaps by Mara
for some reason of her own), hit the Nyanniichuan and the incompatibilities
resulted in very...unexpected side-effects? ^_^
A story of some sort involving a BTVS-style Slayer who drowned at
Jusenkyo (what would *that* spring be called?), and someone who falls
into her spring.
[...]
Hmm; again, not sure here. What, e.g. would a `mouko takabisha' do to
a BTVS vampire? My first instinct would be to say that it would take one very
painfully apart since (in effect) a Ki attack should be anathema to something
`undead'. Also, if Buffy can regularly hold her own, a Ranma-chan *with* all
the BTVS enhancement to her already formidable ability would simply wipe the
floor with almost anything she met. It might be interesting as a `feel-good'
where the nasties just don't know what the kami has hit them, but it could
very easily degenerate into a: `Ranma-slayer is simply invincible' IMO.
A far more interesting possibility might be to give Yohko Mano such
abilities to add to her own, although I've an idea someone's done that?
[...]
Another Ranma idea, this one more general than some.
A fic in which Ranma is, or more likely comes to be, linked mind-to-mind
with one or more people. The link works as follows: someone linked to
another (use Ranma as example, obviously) can tell where said other is
in relation to himself; can sense said other's emotional state; and
(perhaps - depending either on circumstances, or the way the author has
decided the link works) can 'hear' said other's thoughts.
I'm almost certain this one has been done, although I can't remember
the fic just now.
[...]
--
The Wanderer
Craig
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