Couple of announcements that may be of somewhat general interest:

1) I've put up a page at http://www.garykleppe.org/hosted/spidey/ to
host another of Knight Writer's fics, Gosunkugi/Spiderman; if you
haven't read the series and would enjoy action/character drama in a
super-crimefighter vein, I highly recommend you check it out.

2) I expect to be at AWA in Atlanta the weekend after next. Anyone out
there who's also planning on going and would be interested in an FFML
get-together at some point during the con, please email me and I'll be
sure you're notified of anything that gets arranged.

Private responses only on the above, please. We all know what old
curmudgeons those list admins are. ^_^;;;

Knight Writer <jedediah@gotricounty.com> wrote:

   Okay, I've been wanting to write a Mousse fic for a long time, one that doesn't have him as a half-blind lovesick idiot. This is just a teaser, I don't know if I'll write this one out or not. Any C&C on this will be appreciated. <hint, hint> ;-)

And this is only three weeks late, but what the heck. :)

   My given name is Mu Tsu, mispronounce that as you will. I'm used

Actually, it's Mu Si, shown in Chinese characters when he's first
introduced.

to it. You might have guessed that I'm Chinese. I was born to the 
Joketsuzoku, an amazon tribe in the back woods of China in the 

Suggest: the Nyujiezu
(Being Chinese, he's more likely to use the Chinese reading of the name,
unless you establish that whoever he's speaking to is Japanese.)

   In Joketsuzoku, men are second class citizens. Disabled men even worse. Why do I mention that? Simple.

The first is plausible, though there isn't really any evidence on it
either way in the manga. But if men weren't expected to be fighters
anyhow, would their disabilities really matter all that much? Then
again, they do have marriage by combat, so maybe I'm wrong.

   Because I am blind. Not by birth, even then my sight was 
horrible, but by the hand of another. According to the laws of the 
village, I was ineligible to marry. I was considered a burden on my 
family, and honorable suicide was expected. Not by the law, of 

Honorable suicide by unspoken rule is a Japanese schtick; you'd be
unlikely to find it in Chinese culture, to the best of my knowledge. May
want to do something different here.

   Qing-Hai Village

Qing-Hai isn't a village; it's a province. In this fictional world
Jusenkyo and the Amazon village are part of it.

   I recall that moment ten years ago as if it were yesterday. Every detail of every minute is permanently etched in my mind. The sound which drew me into that side street was a fist smacking into the head of Qing-Hai's mayor, for lack of a better word.  I didn't know it then, but I had just run into the Triad.

IIRC, at least at the time this is set, the Triad mainly operated in
Hong Kong and maybe Taiwan. I dunno that you'd have found them in
Qinghai -- if for no other reason, because there's not a lot worth
stealing out there. :)  Also, from what I understand of China circa '86,
only major cities had any sort of decent roads, so them cruising around
in an expensive new car there seems a little implausible.

Nice description of the accident from Mu Si's viewpoint, BTW.

   "Where is he?" came an ancient, scratchy voice from the 
perpetual night, one that made his blood run cold with fright. He 
knew that voice as Elder Khu Lon. Was Quan in trouble with the 

Her name's Ke Lun.

   "Not well, Honored Elder," Mu Tsu managed with a steady voice. "Is Quan in trouble?"
   "Not with me, child."
   Mu Tsu felt a great swell of relief.

KE LUN: After all, I leave the handling of unruly young ruffians to my
colleagues.

MU SI: Urk.

   "I am going to take the poultice from your head, Mu Tsu," Khu Lon said. "I will not harm you."
   "O... Okay." He felt the small hands of the ancient elder gently remove the cloth, and heard the gasps of horror.
   "Gods..."
   "Those bastards!"

KE LUN: Oh my gods, they've killed Ke Ni!

MU SI: Who?

KE LUN: Sorry, pop culture reference. I suppose you've never seen -- er,
I mean watched -- I mean, never mind.

   "What about Jusenkyo?" his father asked. "Perhaps the pools can give him a form with working eyes?"
   "Pao Tsu, I will pretend I did not hear that," Khu Lon replied, 

As in Japanese, in Chinese the family name is given first. Mu would have
to be his family name -- unless he's one of those fictional characters
who only have one name, like Beavis and Butt-Head.  If men are
second-class citizens, it's also possible that children might be given
their mothers' family names rather than their fathers', but that's just
speculation.

   Maybe it was just pity, but one time she had stopped by to see me. I still remember how my heart had soared, only to be crushed by the realization that any chance I'd ever had of making her mine was gone. I guess that's why I finally gave up on marrying her.

SHAN PU: What you talking? That not true at all.

MU SI: Really? Oh, joy!

SHAN PU: Even before accident, you never have chance in first place.

   I had never expected her to visit me again, but she did. Talking 
to her became the only thing which sustained me, and between us grew 
friendship. The great-granddaughter of the most powerful voice on 
the Council of Elders, friends with a blind boy whom no one else 
wanted and whose parents refused to euthanise him. When I would 

MU SI: Which is strange, when you think about it, because I *am* a youth
in Asia.

venture out of my house - which was rare - I would hear the whispers 
about it. They brought the bottled-up rage within me close to the 
surface, and each time it was harder to keep from lashing out. For a 
man to attack a woman in Joketsuzoku was to invite the wrath of the 
Elders, and I knew that I would lose Shan Pu forever...

SHAN PU: That not true at all.

MU SI: Oh no, I'm not falling for this one again.

   Mu Tsu knew it was her the moment the door to the cottage opened.
   "Hi, Shan."

A common informal Chinese form of address is xiao (family name), "xiao"
meaning "little" or "young", somewhat akin to -chan in Japanese but
probably without quite as much connotation of diminutiveness. You could
have Mu address her as "xiao Shan", or "little Shan" or "young Shan" if
you want to eschew the semi-gratuitous Chinese. FYI, lao ("old") is also
used, but only when addressing males, from what I understand.

Of course, even with his radar sense, Mu can't perceive color. But it's
debatable whether anyone else in the series can either.... ^_^;;

   However, the young man could not sit by. He heard all the shouts of villagers calling Lei's name in the woods, could hear the anxiety in their voices. Lei, how old was she? Five? Now he remembered. She had given him a flower one time, saying that he always looked so sad. She was a sweet kid.
   Mu Tsu walked out of the cottage, and froze. No, that couldn't have been...
   "owwww! help me....!"

Might want to add something here about him having to sort out her voice
from all the other background noise, given how far away she evidently
is.

   Mu Tsu instantly knew it was indeed her. Lei's voice was faint, from 
the southwest, yet the villagers were north toward Jusenkyo. Lei was 
curious child. Maybe they thought she had gone to the cursed springs to 

was a curious child.

   "It's okay, Lei," he whispered into her ear. Like hell it was! He 
could never out run a freakin' tiger! He felt the beast's muscles tense, 

outrun (one word)

   "You want us? Come and get us!" he roared as he let fly with a stone 
that smacked true on the tiger's nose, followed by three more that all 
hit home. The beast roared, pissed off, and Mousse was out of rocks. He 
reached out and grabbed a handy stick on the ground. It wasn't much, but 
it was all he had and he would fight, damnit! He was done being a 

damn it!

   "Elder..."
   "And if you had not been blinded, you would have had a small chance to marry Shan Pu."

SHAN PU: A very small chance. A very, VERY small chance. So look on the
bright side. Ooops. Um, figuratively speaking, of course. You do see
what I mean, right? Oops again.

   And that's that. Ideas? Comments? Love to hear them!

Okay, a few ideas. I don't really know whether they'd work better or
not, much less whether they would appeal to you, so just take them as
things to think about.

1) Instead of the Tong, you might want to have Mu's nemesis be something
a little more Ranmaverse-specific. There's lots of possibilities; we
already know about the Musk (Cologne told Ranma that she'd thought them
extinct until they showed up in the series, but she could've been
fibbing), the Phoenix, and Pink & Link, and there's almost surely others
that we don't know about. If you do keep the Tong, I'd suggest
establishing a reason why they're interested in a podunk place like
Qinghai, something that makes them a threat to the locals; we'll cheer
Mu more if he's protecting his fellows than if he's just out for
personal revenge.

2) With future Mousse relating the story as it happened to him in the
past, you might want to add some sort of parallel story happening in the
present so that there's more of a reason to use this POV. Maybe Mousse
recalls his origin as he's tracking down the particular person who
caused his injury. In any case, you could probably tell the entire story
in Mousse's first person POV, since none of the third person narration
shows anything that he doesn't experience himself.

3) Especially since it's in your title, you may want to make the "man
without fear" angle into a more important theme of your story. There's
many ways you could play it. Maybe Mousse really *is* afraid, but has
the courage to do what he needs to anyway. Maybe he used to be afraid of
the dark, but being stuck in permanent dark lets him overcome that, and
afterwards nothing is as bad anymore. Maybe he has a repressed death
wish that's making him reckless. Maybe not. :)  Anyhow, I think you get
the idea.

All in all, an enjoyable read. Good luck with this if you decide to
continue it, and with any future stories.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.garykleppe.org/comics.html
Writing from work; please reply to gary@garykleppe.org

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