Tomorrow, C&Cs will cease to exist. Give yours out today while you still can. Nanchatte.

Half of these are just random comments, and the other half are spelling corrections. Take your pic on what's useful to you.

Thyself Known
Ch.7: I, Ranma
By Zorknot

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and
her cohorts.

What Has Come Before:  Ranma and Nabiki's mind meld
caused them to exchange weaknesses as well as
strengths, as evidenced by the fact that they were
recently featured on the six o'clock news, screwing
each other's brains out and making wild cat noises.

Kodachi: Sex tape? Sex tape, anyone?

Now they are both in prison for exposing themselves,
but its been a day and they haven't been let out yet.
Turns out Detective Inamura has some questions to ask
regarding the death of a friend of Nabiki's, Tomo
Hoko. The evidence shows she killed her!

I have seen at least three fics that makes use of the exclamation point to surprise the reader with a revelation! So far it has never worked! 

~~~~~[BEGIN]~~~~~

"Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all,
Or if he moves will he fall?
Is he alive or dead?
Has he thoughts within his head?
We'll just pass him there
why should we even care?"

-Black Sabbath

What's a Black Sabbath listener doing writing fanfics? Shouldn't he be, er, listening to some more Black Sabbath? :P
 

~~~~~*~~~~~

I'm such a hypocrite, Ranma thought as he lay on the
top bunk of his prison cell, staring at the dim
fluorescent light of the ceiling. Until yesterday, he
hadn't had any feelings at all for Nabiki, and
now...He wanted to spend the rest of his life with
her. 

Ranma: Must be the fanfic's fault. Bad fanfic! Bad plot contrivance! No biscuit!

He had spent a year saying that he didn't want a
fianc�e...that he wasn't ready. But after she
intercepted him yesterday in that intersection, and
kept him from going after Shampoo... He wanted to
marry her right now, ready or not.

Yeah... why? Go ponder on that some more, Ranma.

It wasn't just the sex, though that had been awesome;

Oh, that's why. She's the first one to put out.

it was...well, she was literally a part of him, and
he of her, but that didn't describe it well enough
somehow. At any rate, he was now sure that at least
two parts of the legion of personalities he carried
with him were in love with Nabiki:

Great, a Carrot fic Ranma multiplied by himself. And, as far as I could remember, Nabiki was also the first one to put out in "Insertion." Funny, dat. 

the Nekoken and

his "base" personality, the one he seemed to come
back to all the time.

Some of his personalities just want to have wild monkey sex with her. And the rest? Gay.

He stretched his legs idly on the bunk. He was
wearing gray prison clothes now, as his Chinese shirt
and pants weren't functional as clothing when he was
arrested. The material was kind of scratchy and
stiff. Ranma guessed prison was a nice place to
visit, but you'd have to be an idiot to want to live
there.

It's not the understatement of the year, but you get the consolation prize of... a spork. It's like a spoon, but it's also a fork! Great for those tasty prison meals and defending yourself when you drop the soap.

Looking at the bars and remembering the level of
security in the hallways, he had already come up with
seven different ways of escaping, two of which would
only take some five minutes, and one of which could
be accomplished with out

without

She went a little too far.

"Oh dear!" 

There are 'smart quotes' instead of 'straight quotes' there. Usually, the culprit for this is MS Word. If you're using MS Word, suggest going to the tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options, and unclick all instances of "Replace 'straight quotes' with "smart quotes"
 

It helped to make the distinction. That crass boy was
not her. If it hadn't been for Genma, none of that
would have happened.

Ranma blushed a little, realizing that she couldn't
bring herself to regret the memory, and now all of a

I have no idea since I just picked this chapter up randomly in the FFML and haven't bothered to read the rest of the chapters, but does Ranma... y'know... have this personality even if he's not in girl form? Or does he change back to girl form? Does he even _have_ a Jusenkyo curse in the first place, or has Genma replaced his thousand-year-old-cursed-spring curse with thousand-of-personalities curse? 

sudden she felt like thanking her father. She shook
her head. She was not a lesbian. It was a valuable
experience, and she would be able to use it when it
came time for her to please her husband maybe, but
she wanted a family with children and neighbors and
afternoon tea, 

Anyway, if he doesn't revert to a girl form when he gets this girl personality, at least there are countries where his kind of marriage is legal...

just like when she was young and she

and Akane would play in the yard, and Mom and Dad
were still together...

Awwww... drama.

"Excuse me, Mr. Warden sir?" she called out sweetly

Suggest: "Excuse me... Mr. Warden, sir?"

to the somewhat gaunt looking man in uniform down the
hall.

Unless the Warden is gay, I'm going to presume that Ranma can now activate physiological change by changing personalities.

The hall...Ranma realized with a start, seemed quite

Suggest: The hall, Ranma realized with a start, seemed quite

The warden sauntered lazily toward Ranma's cell.

Not sure, but suggest: towards since 'warden' is singular.
The warden smiled. "So...you're a girl now, are you,
Ranma? That's nice. I wonder what your pussy tastes
like?"

"Excuse me?" Ranma backed away. This guy knew her?
And apparently he had a perversion that didn't just
end with inanimate objects. "Who are you?"

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

Ranma backed farther away, her back touching the bowl
of the sink behind her. She wished she could use the
Tobu Sennuki she came up with yesterday on the creep
but she didn't have the soul of ice going, and after
what it did to Happosai, what if it killed the guy?
She looked around for things she could use to attack
the man through the bars. She swallowed and tried to
calm herself. It was just an old guy with a limp. She
could take him no problem...but he gave her the
creeps. "Listen, man, I don't know what your problem
is.

Funny, I thought the girl personality was 'nice, sweet and Kasumi-like'. So why's she sounding like IC Ranko from the original manga?

"No phones in Hell! No phones in Hell!" he screeched.
Then he grabbed the bars with his hands and laughed
his carburetor laugh. "I've been here so long waiting
for a way out. Waiting for you! And here you are all
wrapped in a pretty package. I am the master of this
space. I am...Iron man."

Uuuuhhh... yeah. This guy is creepy. (smiles) Iiiiinteresting.

The bars that the warden held started to glow. Ranma
felt intense heat wash over her, and she had to
shield her eyes against the light. Suddenly she felt
a terrible pain in her gut, a pain that increased
exponentially as she felt herself lift up and pinned
to the glass of the mirror above the sink. She
smelled something burning. Flesh. Cloth. Her eyes
adjusted to the brightness enough to see the cackling
face of the warden, his arm now ending in long sharp
spear that impaled her stomach.

This is reading like 'Smallville,' where some random villager developed super powers for no apparent reason except for the fact that Superboy is there.
 

Nabiki startled into a standing position out of her

Nabiki was startled into...

chair in the interrogation room, jingling the links
of her handcuffs.

"Sit back down, Tendo. You aren't leaving here until
I get some answers," Detective Inamura ordered. His
eyes burned with a fire Nabiki had never seen before.
One of Nabiki's closest contacts was Inamura's
daughter Yuki, and so Nabiki had met the man a few

daughter Yuki, so Nabiki had...

Nabiki had known as soon as she had seen Hoko at
Tofu's that something had gone terribly wrong. Hoko's
aura had been normal on the surface, but underneath
it...almost imperceptible was this terrible

it...there was this almost imperceptible, terrible

flickering blackness. Nabiki thought at first that

(blinks) Nabiki can read ki now? Does this have something to do with the mind meld?

Something had killed Hoko and was now pretending to
be her. 

That's the conclusion she jumped to? Surreal, especially since the fic plot will probably prove her right.
 

The police would not be able to solve this. It was up
to her.

As per usual in not just fanfics, but most any movie that's _not_ about cops. The cops are worthless and good for only for backup or when everything has already been resolved ("The cavalry has arrived," and some such), it's the protagonists who will get to the bottom of everything.
 

Which brought her to her present predicament. She was
holding back something. And while she had an
excellent poker face, there was no getting past
Detective Inamura. His aura, Nabiki noted, was a
deep, sharp purple that seemed to give him a serrated
edge. It darkened and brightened in flashes, like a
bladed weapon wielded in the light.

(groan) Of course. It's Inamura's 'sharp, serrated ki' is what gives his 'sharp detective sense. It's like a pun, only much more obvious. 9_9

pocket of his white uniform shirt. There was nothing
abnormal about the aura at first, but Nabiki looked
closer...and there it was.

Still, I do like the suspense of what's the fate of _Ranma_, of all people. IMO, now's not the time for him to be hesitant if he'll hurt the weird officer too much.

Inamura accepted the coffee with a grumbled out
"thanks" took a sip with out

without

"Just let me know if anything new turns up in the
investigation." Inamura said gruffly.

investigation," Inamura said gruffly.

The real Kawagami Hiro was, of course, tied up in
Hoko's closet, catatonic from the sleeping pills
Copycat had found in Tomo-san's medicine cabinet, and

Copycat Ken?

would stay that way until he was sure that Nabiki was
in jail and hopefully Ranma along with her as an
accomplice. He chuckled as he returned to his desk in
the precinct and organized some papers to make it
look like he was working. Soon it would be a simple
matter of taking a prisoners body

prisoner's body

This was the first time he had ever incapacitated a
real police officer for a disguise. He did it in
desperation when he saw the cop come to the door of
the Tomo residence yesterday. 

Got to hand it to Nabiki for having killer instincts on these types of situations.

Copycat actually jumped when the phone on Hiro's desk
rang. He smiled at his own nervousness. It had been a
long time since he was this excited. He was so close!
But he had to be careful.

On the third ring he picked up the receiver. "Nerima
Prefectural

There's no such word. Use 'Prefecture'
 

"He's gotten you too now hasn't he? All this time
you've stood back, amused at all the girls who threw
themselves at him, and now you're just another
flunkie, no different from your homicidal sister, or
the airheaded Amazon, or that pathetic codependent
crossdressing caterer."

cross-dressing caterer.

"This is about Ranma" Nabiki said simply.

"Yes, I gather you know the perpetrator then? The
identity thief? The soul stealer?"

Chuuku: (sneezes for a shameless plug)

"You won't be able to kill him in prison. He'll just
escape and leave the country, and then you won't be
able to get near him."

Copycat winced. She was right.-

Get rid of the hyphen after the period.

Copycat forced himself to be cautious.

Since he has to force himself, then it really must be a good deal. Expect no less from Nabiki.
 

"This chance...you'll let me have any means at your
disposal? You won't obstruct me in any way?"

"Not at all. You have my word."

But words can be manipulated, as people. 
 

"So in other words, the reason your fingerprints are
on Hoko's arm is that this...doppleganger

doppelganger

"In the real world, people don't hit their heads and
forget all about police procedure. And Kawagami would
never be in here without his sunglasses on. His eyes
are sensitive to the light. Calling him was very
dangerous, and now things aren't going to go as
easy."

Wow. He is a good detective/police officer/whatever. Him and his 'razor sharp' instincts from his 'razor sharp' ki.
 

"What do you mean?"

"Well, of course we had your conversation tapped. I
have to say, Tendo

Suggest: Tendo,

 that was pretty stupid what you

did. Extremely dangerous, lying outright to someone
like that. You could get killed. Of course we'll be
watching now, but still. You're walking a thin line.
A real  thin line."

A real thin line." (extra space)

Stifling her throttle reflex, Nabiki said, "Ranma is
going through something called the Ijuu. He isn't the
same person from one minute to the next. Does that
count as a serious mental disorder?"

"Crap." Inamura snapped his fingers and Nabiki's
cuffs fell off her wrists and rattled to the floor.

Inamura Houdini. This is a weird story you got here, fic.

Then he unholstered

No such word. I dunno what to suggest. (shrugs) Un-holstered?

Inamura explained as he and Nabiki hurried through
the corridors of the police station. "The precinct
exists in a quantum irregularity. Time gets distorted
more and more as you approach the jail and often we
get dimensional crossover. It can get pretty nasty,
but if we take the right path I can get you to Ranma
before whatever's happening starts to happen."

No fair! You didn't say that this was a Twilight Zone/Ranma 1/2 crossover!

"Don't you have any larger weapons?" Nabiki asked.

"Just 'ole reliable here." Inamura waved his pistol,
but Nabiki's growing sense of imminent doom made it
seem terribly inadequate. "Won't need anything else.
The only way to beat Airanman is through force of
will. 

Chuuku: (sneezes again)

(thinks) Then normally it wouldn't stand a chance against Ranma, or any randomly-picked anime protagonists with the notable exception of Shinji Ikari.

~You don't want it to stop. You like pain. You like
the hot searing fleshiness of it. You're a girl. A
little whore. Your name is Airanko. You like it when
people hit you. You like it when people hurt you. The
more they hurt you the more they love you. See how
much I'm hurting you. You're my little bitch. My
painsickle. My vessel...~

weird anamorphous body snatching thingy: Who's your daddy?

Ranma: (dazed) You. Are. You. Are. Ooooyaaaajiii.

~What you had with Nabiki wasn't real. It was a wet
dream nothing more.

Suggest: dream, and nothing more.

 You cannot expect Nabiki to drop

everything to marry you. What have you to offer her?
Martial Arts? Please. She's destined for greatness
while you're destined for street fights. You'll have
your fling maybe. She'll use you for a while and then
you'll be discarded. Just like your mother discarded

Just like how your mother discarded...

"Yes..." Airanko whispered and she felt the liquid
metal encompass her as it started to cool.

Matrix-ey.
 

"No. You are Saotome Ranma. You are the heir to the
Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. You saved my
life and now you're my fianc�...the one I love. 

Geh. Sap. (hisssss) Bring back the pain! Go away whoever you are, sappy person! (hisssss)

I

name you. I claim you. 

Sounds a lot like caveman talk... or the street-talk of some thug from the squatters area of a certain archipelagic group of islands in Southeast Asia who doesn't have a handle of the English language but tries anyway.

thug: I CRUSH you! (his way of saying that he's infatuated with you)

~See? She can't give you what you need. Only I can.
She'll throw you away like scrap. I will mold you
into something new and shiny and sharp. You'll be

weird anamorphous body snatching thingy: ...like the detective guy's ki, only sharper and more masochistic.

safe from all your little friends.

If Airanko wants pain, then she shouldn't want to be safe from her little friends from the Nerima wrecking crew.

You'll be

immortal, my little injury queen, and your screams
will make the earth melt and the heavens burn away.~

Ranma's eyes widened as she felt the searing hot
liquid metal pass once again into her stomach... felt
it somehow against her back. "I am not your BITCH!"
Ranma screamed and Airanman was blown away into the
bars of the cell opposite Ranma's.

Ranma slid down the wall, and passed out.

~~~~~*~~~~~

Akane sneezed.

Akane: Yeah... 'Coz he's my bitch. (blinks) Now where'd that come from?

Shampoo..." she spoke the name with more venom then
she intended. She wanted to blame her for everything,
but she resisted. Even if Shampoo was to blame for
Akane being unable to learn how deal with Ranma, it
was still Akane that had mocked Ranma, jeered at him,
attacked his greatest weakness with a gusto that was
sickening. 

Akane should be more worried about how she flattened Ranma like a pizza with as many a blunt object she could find. Ranma's the one who mocks, jeers, and most of the time unintentionally insults Akane.

Then again, since I've C&Ced in the middle of everything, this may yet be another one of those unknown character developments which I have not read.

the question. She had done too much to even begin to
ask for forgiveness. And what made it worse was
knowing they would give it to her if she asked. They
would forgive her when she had blamed them for
everything.

GTO: Idiot. You're just running away, and you're going to make yourself feel worse by running away. It's a never-ending cycle of pain.
 

Becoming Amazon was the only thing that kept Akane
from losing it all together. 

That kind of makes sense, in a way. Completely weird, but it isn't without precedent.

She had a new chance
now. A new code of honor she could adhere to after
she had shattered her old one. She would not let
herself be weak. She would not fuck this up.

GTO: On the other hand, I'm up for some hot girl-on-girl action. So who are you going to wrestle to get to join the 'Amazons'?
 

And she felt like crying again.

Awwww... drama.
 

~~~~~*~~~~~

Ukyo had evened out Shampoo's shortened hair for her
and she looked cute in the Ucchan's uniform. Ukyo
herself didn't swing that way, but she had spent
enough time in a boy's school to know what guys
liked, and Shampoo was it. She could kid herself that
she was cuter, but it was a conceit that didn't stand
up to scrutiny. If it weren't for the fact that Ranma
liked tomboy types, 

Joem: ...Or for the fact that Shampoo has her off-putting and manipulative grandmother, or for the fact that they had the 'kiss of death' going on for them, or for the fact that the manga author is obviously biased...

Ukyo wouldn't have a chance.

Ukyo flipped an okonomiyaki too soon and the batter
spattered on her hand, burning her skin. "Fuck." Ukyo
seethed, and she tried to get the image of Nabiki
doing just that to poor innocent, defenseless Ranma

Well, maybe not defenseless, and I wouldn't use 'innocent' to describe Ranma. Maybe some other, less flattering synonym...
 

Ukyo focused on the okonomiyaki. She envisioned
pouring all of her negative energy into the batter
letting it all go into the mix. 

If this were an SM/R.5 crossover, then she'd be creating an okonomiyaki youma.

When she finished her

next okonomiyaki, she felt a lot better. She wouldn't
want to serve it to anyone though. It simply wasn't
ethical to serve an okonomiyaki that wasn't made with
love. Taking a short break without letting Shampoo
know, Ukyo took the okonomiyaki with her out the back
door to the yard outside. She threw it Frisbee like

Suggest: "Frisbee-like" or "like a Frisbee"

into the thick trunk of a large deciduous tree. She
wasn't exactly surprised when it exploded, but when
the tree toppled over, Ukyo knew it was time to close
for the day.

O_O

(insert Twilight Zone hymn here)

To say that something weird is happening in Nerima is redundant, but I believe you're fic is the exception to the rule. I really do.

"Unnnh..." Ranma moaned, holding a hand to her head
just above her right eye. "Did anyone get the number
of that truck?"

Did anyone get the number of that cliche saying?

Ranma: (thinks) Ummm... forty-three?

Nabiki sat crosslegged

cross-legged

in a plastic chair in the

recovery room. She put down the latest issue of
Forbes and tsked.

Suggest: "clucked his tongue over the roof of her mouth" to replace "tsked"

"I mean I'm just after free food and money, but you,
you expect to be rescued from sado-masochistic demons
from the fifth dimension, and on the second date no
less!" Ranma sat up and Nabiki helped her to her
feet. "Daddy and Kasumi are here, having a worrying
contest.

Suggest: "Worry contest"

 So far Daddy's winning with his trademark

waterfall of tears, but Kasumi may be a dark horse
candidate with her incessant hand wringing ."

First off, the period should be beside the word 'wringing'. Secondly, what Nabiki said sounded like exposition, not dialogue. Suggest revising to make her say things more subtly.
 

"You're acting like yourself again. And...I don't
know, just yesterday I didn't even want to be
associated with that Panda father of yours, but
now...hearing you say that I'm part of your family
makes me feel good." Nabiki brushed a strand of hair
out of her face. "I'm not used to that."

David Anderson: OOC. She's acting halfway human. That's simply OOC. There's no indicative precedent that Nabiki's capable of compassion and caring. (for the curious, D.A.'s insightful essay on the mind of Nabiki can be found here at: http://www.furinkan.com/rumic/articles/)
 

Ranma found herself rising to meet Nabiki's lips
again. When she was done she frowned, "Why are Daddy
and... I mean why are your father and Kasumi worried
about me?"

Mind meld, eh?

"Okaaay�what about?" Nabiki asked.

"It's rather difficult to explain I'm afraid. Ranma-
chan, do you still have the Saiserefu Noon?"

"Ah�heh, heh," Ranma scratched the back of her head,
"I kind of lost it when Nabiki and I were�"

Non-ascii ellipses there. Suggest tweaking the settings of your autocorrect if you're using word to fix that.
 

"I think something about the� mindmeld caused the
Saiserefu to move from Ranma's earrings to you. You
are now Ranma's Thyself Known."

(sigh) I don't understand a word they're saying... Not that it's the fic's fault or the author's fault. Unknown plot points and all that.
 

Nabiki nodded slowly."That

Separate 'slowly.' from "That

would explain how I knew

what to do when Ranma was fighting Airanman,"

"That's not all I'm afraid. I think it goes both
ways. Nabiki, Ranma is your Saiserefu just as much as
you are Ranma's. As long as you two are together
you'll be perfectly fine. But if you're apart for
very long, I'm afraid your personality may fracture
just as badly as Ranma's has."

"How romantic," Nabiki deadpanned.

Heh. Well, Nabiki's personality is still perfectly intact, for the moment.
 

Kasumi nodded, "'The two will become one.' Tofu and I
had our own Ijuu. We too were our own Thyself Knowns,

I think I'm getting it, and I think I'm in for a really weird and tragic story. (shrugs) At least it's not tragic in the sense that's its unreadable and infested with horrible cliches. Still, it's different. Is that good? Is that bad? I don't know, but at I can read these kinds of fics once in a while.

but for us, in order to stay ourselves we had to stay
apart. 

Is that the reason why Tofu's not himself when Kasumi's around? I... think I'm getting a headache. -_-

It was then she noticed that she was holding Nabiki's
hand even as she was comforting Kasumi with the
other. She realized she had said "we" twice. Not "I"
but "we". And she knew then that whatever it was she
was going to do, she was going to do it with Nabiki.

It ain't WAFF, it's drama. Drama's good.

~~~~~*~~~~~

When Hiro Kawagami woke, his entire body felt like
fruitcake. His eyelids were particularly heavy
fruitcakes, the kind passed around for generations.
When he finally got them open the sandpaper sensation

You're missing the word 'from' or 'of'

He managed to get into a sitting position, which
seemed like a good idea at the time, but his inner
ear mistook this as an attempt to do a back flip off
world's fastest rollercoaster right after the third
loop. His stomach tried to throttle him again, and in
the midst of all this violence, he fell over, his
shoulder splatting 

That's not a word.

A minute or so passed as Kawagami lay there thinking
of vomit flavored fruitcake. There were a lot of
fruitcakes in Nerima he mentally segwayed.

That's also not a word. Perhaps you were thinking of the word, "segued"? (not sure)

The figure seemed to ignore him. "They bought you
some time. I was going to kill you chop you into bits
and spread your remains across the countryside, make
a day trip out of it, see the sights. Now that plan's
fucked. The bitch is giving me a way to get close to
her manwhore. Of course its 

it's

not going to go down like

she thinks. She thinks I'm going to go galavanting

gallivanting
 

" What do you-" Kawagami started, but then he
stopped. That was not his voice. Much too high. That
was�that was�

"Get up Tomo Hoko, I'm taking you to the police
station. Inamura's going to have a lot questions to
ask, but I'm sure between the two of us we can set
him straight, don't you think?"

Wow. Devious. I like.
 

~~~~~[END]~~~~~

(shrugs) Shouldn't this be "to be continued" because of your promise it's obvious going to be continued?

Okay. It's been a long time since I did a chapter on
this. I'm sorry to have left you hanging with that
last, but there were several problems I had with the
politics of the police station and such. 

Wow. You applied some of your experiences in 'politics of the police station' in the fic or is this only an aside?

I'm sure

someone will catch some glaring error and I'll have
to go back and change something, but for now this is
the chapter.

It keeps people hanging all right. Judging from the quality of this chapter, I'd say you have one helluva weird fic. 

Oh, and judging from the way it's structured and the way it's flowing, the surreal plot parts should stay as is. I haven't read many fics like this. It certainly does present quite the twist to the Ranma fanfic genre. It's weird, in a good way.

I'm in Grad School now and I'm working on

several original fiction works and so chapters are
going to come even slower. I only finished this
because several people emailed me about it.

Ah. Cool. You're evolving, so to speak. You're fic already has its unique feel, so jumping from this to original fiction works should be any problem for you. Gambare.

Anyway I do plan on continuing this, and I thank you
for bearing with me as time slogs forward like a
forwardly slogging thing.

^_^; I wouldn't say that I've been 'keeping track' of this for a 'long time'... 

It gets weirder.

Well, if that's an understatement, then... 

I can't offer much more than grammar corrections. Seems you already know what you're doing and know where this is going. It's different from what I usually write and read, but it's still a refreshing read. It's always good to have variety. Well, what else is there to say?

Keep on writing,
Abdiel


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