Yet another previously unpublished story set in my
"Thy Outward Part" universe.  This will be the last
one, I promise.

Aww. :(

But then, you said the same thing with Serendipity :)

True.  One never knows where one's muse will take one.  The epilog of "Time 
Never Did Assuage" got me speculating about what family life would be like 
with Ranma as the mother of two children.  I projected down the line for a 
while, building the basis of a story, then decided it was going nowhere and 
let it die.

Still, I should be careful about what statements I make about my writing. 
=)

So, to put it in its proper context, you should prolly read
"Thy Outward Part" and "The Nature of Love":

http://www.sterman.org/top.html

http://www.sterman.org/tnol.html

As well as "Technical Virginity" to understand a brief time-lapse. ;)

Well, true that.  =)

Oddly enough? It could also hint at "Serendipity,"
and Ranma's acceptance of his/her dual nature. I
really like the quote for its allegory, and how it
can describe all three of Ranma relationships, even
if I can't give it a literal attribution within
either context.

I actually chose it for exactly that reason, that it could be interpreted in 
different ways, depending on which perspective you chose.  I agree, though, 
that what the passage literally describes doesn't quite fit anything in the 
story.

More silence.  Then his hand was gently clasped, a smaller
hand fitting inside his.  That too felt strange, he expected
the hand to be larger. Almost awkwardly he held on, trying
to draw a degree of comfort from the contact.

Interesting that he's still disassociating as a force of habit,
especially since he has to catch himself from doing it later on.
He's drawing comfort from the touch itself, where by all rights
he should draw it from Akane's presence.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was going for.  Ranma has two separate 
problems:  being with Kentaro whom he loves but whom he feels uncomfortable 
being physical with, or Akane whom he has no problems being physical with 
but never truly loved.  Either way, he has inhibitions.

Nabiki, looking mildly grumpy, had a wide space
next to her, the place reserved for Ranma and Akane.

Why is Nabiki grumpy?

Er, I hate to say it, but for no particular reason.  Mostly because most 
breakfast scenes in the manga show Nabiki looking tired and not particularly 
cheerful.  I took that to mean that she's definitely not a morning person 
and will be grumpy most mornings.

"Mother," Ranma interrupted.  "Please, I need some time.
A lot's happened, I need to... to internalize it all.

Ergh, I agree that this doesn't sound like a word Ranma
would typically use.

True.  This would be better rephrased.

"Ranma."  Mother was clearly trying to be as calm and reasonable
as possible.  "The sooner you and Akane get married, the better
everyone will feel, including yourself."

That's an awfully egocentric way to look at an extremely complex
situation.

One thing I really took from Zen's masterpiece, "The Bitter End", was how he 
showed how everyone involved, from Kasumi to Nodoka to Soun to Ukuo to Akane 
to Ranma, had a part in the final tragedy.  They each thought they were 
honestly doing the best they could, and were all of them blind to the 
potential consequences.  While I had a few problems with other parts of "The 
Bitter End", that part was brilliant.

So I tried to incorporate a little bit of that here.  Both Akane and Nodoka 
think that they absolutely know what's best for Ranma and aren't able to be 
truly objective about that.

"You wish you could undo?"  Ranma matched glares with his
mother.  "I'm curious.  What is it that you wish you could
undo, exactly?"

Yeah, she could've phrased that better.

A lot of what happens between Nodoka and Genma is based in part on my 
parents.  They had a truly miserable marriage from what I could remember of 
it - they divorced when I was in the second grade.  They yelled at each 
other a lot, which was the basis for the scene in "The Nature of Love" where 
Genma and Nodoka fight in the dojo.  Looking back on it now, it's certainly 
easy to fall into the viewpoint that things would have been much better for 
both of them if they'd never gotten married to each other.  But then, I and 
my sisters wouldn't be alive if that were the case.

Situations like that are never easy to reach a consistent perspective on.

"Well... I mean, it was too much for him."  Akane was
speaking quietly but forcefully; Ranma wasn't sure if
he was just imagining the hint of vindication in her voice.

Inner Akane: I won! I won! Woohoo!

Hehehehe.

At what should have been one of the high points in
Ranma's existence, one person who had helped him
survive to reach it had abandoned him.  Over a stupid,
silly thing.

Er, stupid and silly? Just _what_ is he thinking about
here? Even if he's blaming it on Kentaro not accepting
him as a man, that's in no way stupid or silly, even
for Ranma.

Well, in my mind this is how Ranma responds to perceived weakness in others. 
If someone flinches, no matter how valid the reason, he thinks that they're 
being stupid.  It's not fair, but it's very Ranmaesque.

While a large part of "Time Never Did Assuage" showed Ranma slowly maturing 
and dealing with his problems head-on, he can still fall back to the old 
form of detesting weakness - in others and himself.

This was all just my rationalization, of course.  =)  To make the final 
scene in "The Nature of Love" more dramatic, I had six weeks pass between 
Ranma's curse being removed and his seeing Kentaro again.  In this story, I 
had to justify exactly why Ranma wouldn't even make an attempt to contact 
Kentaro, and this was what I went with.

"God, Akane."  Nabiki sounded close to disgust.  "Sometimes
you make me sick.  Are you really so incapable of seeing
anything except in terms of how it affects you?"

Kudos to Nabiki for expressing pretty much what I was thinking.
I don't like her character very much from the manga, but her
characterization here shows an astonishing degree of maturity
from her.

Another untold backstory to "Thy Outward Part" is Nabiki going through her 
own traumatic experiences in college.

When I myself was in high school, I was the smartest guy there.  Scored 
highest on all the tests, had a choice of colleges to go to, etc.  I 
eventually went to Caltech and was shocked at how smart I really wasn't.  I 
met some truly brilliant people there.  That was quite a blow to my ego, and 
eventually I dropped out of college to move cross-country and live with my 
girlfriend.  I rate that decision as the worst one I've ever made in my 
life.  I should have stuck it out or transferred to another college.

I decided that something similar happened to Nabiki, who was certain she 
could excel at anything she attempted and would be able to manipulate anyone 
she chose to in order to accomplish her goals.  While that worked fine in 
high school, I imagine it backfired spectacularly in college, and that she 
was then forced to switch colleges.  It humbled and matured her quite a bit, 
in my backstory, leading to the sadder but wiser Nabiki of this story.

Ranma had agreed reluctantly, certain that the
trip would be accomplished quickly so that he
could go back to brooding.

(Amazing that Nodoka didn't come along, like she
usually does in "Ranma goes shopping!" fic scenes ;P)

I remember the many debates that were had before the days of moderation on 
the FFML, some of them over the silliest things.  One was whether "Spring of 
Drowned Girl" meant that Ranma's female form would remain that of a girl 
even as his male form aged.  I actually used something similar to that in my 
next-generation story "Magic".  People pointed out, though, the bra-shopping 
expedition Ranma, Akane, and Nodoka went on in the manga after both Akane 
and Ranma noticed that their breasts were getting larger.  That, then, was 
proof that Ranma's female form was aging just like her male form.

While it quite often got out of hand, I admit that sometimes I miss the 
wacky debates the old FFML had.

Unfortunately, her ability to pick color, texture and fabric
ran along the same lines as her cooking skill.

Hey now.  =)  Remember, the manga shows that by Ryuzengawa, Akane had 
actually become an acceptable cook, producing curry that was actually edible 
and tasty.

In almost every situation at college he had been the
smallest adult present.

Heh. You'd think that, since he takes so much after Nodoka, his
female half would be as tall as she is.

I just went by the manga, which consistently showed Ranma as being smaller 
than anyone else her age.

Tell me what it was like at the end.
Before... before I showed up."

Ranma: I was about to try out what I read in all those
lemons. You kinda cramped my style, though.

This made me laugh out loud.  =)

"We never did enough of this.  I mean talk like this,
really try to understand one another."

............

Well, when one of you likes taunting and sniping, and
the other responds to that with a mallet or a convenient
stone lantern, heartfelt chats become somewhat of a rare
commodity :P

'xactly.  =)  Sometimes I got frustrated with the immaturity of Akane and 
Ranma in the manga, even though I knew it was a necessity for the comedic 
effect.

"May I come in?" she said in a near whisper.

Hmm. I suppose the Saotomes are over at their own house
tonight?

Hmm.  Must admit, I never thought about the logistics here.

Which meant that whatever Nabiki had to share, it couldn't
be good news.

If that's why it frightens Akane, it scares the hell out of
me for a different reason --it says, to me, that Nabiki doesn't
feel she's in control of the situation.

See above for the discussion on the new Nabiki.  Poor woman still has a 
marriage and divorce to go through.

You want him to apologize, to work things out
between you, to make the relationship possible again."

Oh my God, it's spreading. She knew him for only a couple
of days, but she caught the bug. Quick! Someone seal
Kentaro in a bubble before his rationalization skills
infect the rest of the household!

Hehehe.  "Stop me before I Kentaro again!"

"Yes!"  Ranma paused, frowned at himself, then repeated, "Yes.
There were things I liked about being female

He felt pretty, so pretty and witty and wise!

The original lyric was actually "pretty and witty and gay".  It was changed 
in recent years.  Can't imagine why.

It would be particularly apropos here, though.  =)

[Ranma waking up, taking stock, and going about
picking up clothes]

Hmm. She's being very natural, maybe even casual about all
this. To be frank, I expected a bit of introspection from
her regarding what she has just been through. Now, I know
you might not want to intrude into Technical Virginity's
handling of those issues,

That's actually why I avoided that; I don't want to diminish "Technical 
Virginity".  Really, I was happy how Bast handled everything there and 
thought it best to leave is as much a standalone as possible and move on to 
different things in this story.

"That, I think, is something you will have to figure out for
yourself.  In a way, I pray you never do."  Mother left the
rest of the dishes in the sink and began walking out of the
kitchen.

I wonder if this very conversation came back to haunt them during
"Serendipity."

Right now I'm struggling with both "Serendipity" and "Those Tears Are 
Pearl".  I think I'm just going to dump "Tears" from the TOP timeline 
because it's a bad lemon and it's difficult to reconcile Akane and Ranma 
behaving the way they do after this story.

So I'm happy to see "Tears" vanish into the ehter, but that leaves me with 
the problem of how to justify Ranma staying female for more than a month in 
"Serendipity".  Still working on that.

It was almost against her nature to plan things in such
details - Ranma specialized in making up lessons on the
spot -

"OK, class, today we're learning how to defend ourselves
from a hive of several hundred angry bees! It'll help you
get faster, I promise!"

Hehehehe.  I can totally picture this, too.  =)

And, to cut straight to the point, that's exactly my
absolute favorite aspect of the whole TOP saga: seeing
the characters fight not an external opponent that can
be easily personified, but themselves, their own vague
insecurities and prejudices and perceptions, and come out
all the wiser and stronger from it.

Thanks for the kind words.  =)  I, too, like stories like that.

I remember yet another debate on the old FFML about how my stories were so 
far removed from the manga as to make the characters unrecognizable.  The 
manga is all about laughs and shows people behaving in an exaggerated 
fashion in order to produce comedic moments.  No one ever gets too syrupy or 
WAFFy like they do in my stories.  I admit freely that my stories go very 
much against the spirit of the manga, but, y'know, I drew from the manga the 
bits I liked:  Intelligent Nabiki who occasionally helps out the family, 
wise Kasumi who provides a sense of stability in an otherwise-chaotic world, 
a kind Akane when her temper doesn't get the better of her, and a Ranma 
who's egotistical but will still bend over backwards to help people out.

Plus a guy turning into a girl is cool.  =)

So I write stories about the things I liked in the manga and discard the 
things I don't: the slapstick comedy, the godlike powers and, esepcially, 
Happosai, who I still detest to this very day.

And I must insist. I was very, very excited to hear that
you were finishing up this story when I commented on TNL,
and it was an amazing coincidence that I was suggesting
that same thing, but if I were given another chance
I'd immediately ask for just one more piece, one where the
point of view fell on the Saotomes themselves.

Heh.  You know, one of the stories I most regret not finishing was "The 
Tales of Genma and Nodoka", detailing their relationship in the universe of 
"Thy Inward Love".  I've always been fascinated by the thought of what is 
going on between those two.  Nodoka is a bright and beautiful woman; why 
would Genma ever leave her?  How could any mother allow their child to be 
taken from her, not to be seen again for over a decade?  Why does Genma 
never appear happy to be with Nodoka?  "Tales of Genma and Nodoka" was to 
try and explore all those areas, but I got bogged down when it became 
necessary to thoroughly research the manga.  Too lazy to do that much work, 
I abandoned the idea and it died after two chapters.

My next project will be to rewrite "Thy Inward Love" and its sequels, 
excluding "Magic" which I've also decided to let die a quiet death.  When I 
get to TIL, I may brush off "Genma and Nodoka" and finish it out.

Anyway, I want to thank you, Jorge, for the many insightful comments you 
made and the time you took to make them.

-Richard 


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