Untitled Ranma/Naruto crossover fic (New: Ch. 23 to 32)

[Fellow Sufferer]

...Fuck me. You really have thought that all out, haven't you? %)))

P.S. And here I was thinking that maybe Davros decided to post his updates here... Silly me.

[Scratx-chan]

byakuyakchk36, I'll say it for everyone... tl;dr


(I hope you really did not expect anyone to actually go over almost 90k words of text dump in a forum)

[Vasey]

Sometimes less is more. A novel length post that looks to be mostly wiki copy/paste is a bit on the absurd side.

[Akuma-sama]

Retardedly long posts are retardedly long... jesus.

[Pale Wolf]

Oy. Byakuyakchk36.

You've almost posted more than the actual author, and a list of random techniques you want to see his characters use is somewhat off-topic, and seriously derails discussion. Nobody even wants to try reading that post of yours right now, or any part of the page it's on.

And that's assuming that you didn't actually break the board's software - there's supposed to be a word limit, I have to split 20k word chapters into 2-3 chunks to fit them in, and you've managed to post 88k...

Consider this your first official warning.

And, post deleted. The forum was glitchy since it posted.

[Nadrek]

So... why does no-one in a remote country ask for a phone, an HF radio (multi-thousand mile range, and can be quite small and low powered, with naught but a wire antenna), or a globe/world map?

[Wyrd]

So... why does no-one in a remote country ask for a phone, an HF radio (multi-thousand mile range, and can be quite small and low powered, with naught but a wire antenna), or a globe/world map?

Do you mean in the Naruto-verse, where radio technology, while small, is apparently limited to only short range communication? Perhaps all of the jutsu being thrown around generate em interference that makes long range radio communications useless. The summons being called could be disrupting the fabric of space-time, creating ripples that cause even more interference. After all, even in an emergency where every minute counted, Sunagakure sent a messenger bird to Konohagakura. A coded transmission between the two asking for immediate help could have been sent with little fear of interception or decryption, as long as it was a code that was rarely used and combined cyphers with word substitution.

Electricity is apparently widely available, but there are no cars. The most advanced form of motorized transportation shown is a steam engine in one of the OVA's. It is possible that this is a world with little to no access to fossil fuels, slowing down the development of transportation and industry on a large scale. Combined with the interference listed earlier, this could help explain many of the otherwise anachronistic elements of the series. There may be only a few generators in places with natural energy sources to harvest(like a solar plant in Suna, a wood burning or hydroelectric plant* in Konoha, wind turines in wind country, etc.), with places too far from these generators just having to deal with life without electricity.

Also, it is very common for crossovers such as this to ask for a map and see that the map depicted in anime and manga bears no resemblance to any terrain on Earth. In this particular fic, the Hokage specifically states that he has never even heard of China or Japan, even from the farthest travellers.

*Or, given that the country is called the land of fire, there may be volcanoes and geothermal vents providing geothermal power.

[Nadrek]

My apologies; I mean why did none of the Nerima crew ask for a phone, a radio, a globe (!), or a world map? They wouldn't know about the tech base of the Narutoverse at that point in the timeline.

Further, the Kage's not recognizing China or Japan is interesting but irrelevant; perhaps his map has the right land masses labeled "The Middle Kingdom" and "Nihongo: Here Be Cold Dragons". Ranma and Ryouga, at least, should be familiar with one place having more than one name.

[Vasey]

To be honest, I just didn't think it was interesting enough to spend a lot of time on that sort of thing in the setup. We've all seen it before in stories like this & we all know how it's going to end. I pretty much agree with you that they would/could/should have tried those things (I don't think any of the three would know enough about radios to ask for a specific type like you suggest, but asking for a phone and to look at maps, sure) but I just didn't want to spend time on it when the answer was going to come out 'no' as it always does.

[Pale Wolf]

To be honest, you probably should have.

Remember, 'like it always does'. You need to distinguish yourself from the 'always', and the best way to do that is to spend the time on it, and paying attention to the details.

Show your characters pursuing every option they can think of to get their objective. Or at least summarize it. Even if it fails, showing the attempt is important because it says something about the characters, it shows how much they want whatever it is they want, and it shows how creative they are in trying to find it - and it says something about the writer paying attention to the small stuff.

[Vasey]

You may have a point there. I treated that first chapter as something to get out of the way - nothing more than a quick setup - before I could get to the story itself. I don't see that as a particularly grave flaw as that's essentially what the chapter is but I could have put more into it.

[Wyrd]

You may have a point there. I treated that first chapter as something to get out of the way - nothing more than a quick setup - before I could get to the story itself. I don't see that as a particularly grave flaw as that's essentially what the chapter is but I could have put more into it.

First chapters like that have turned me off of fics before, when the author didn't spend enough time on the setup chapter to hold my interest. Fics where all of the issues that the author doesn't want to deal with have one paragraph cures in the first chapter can diverge so rapidly from the source that it becomes unrecognizable. Either make those changes count for something, or don't mention them except in the author's notes.

For example, if you don't want to write about the neko ken, either never have any cats show up or make an comment in the notes that your fic is AU and your Ranma never went through it. Don't just have Luna zap it away with a 10 second Lunar mind meld(or whatever it was called). Some things can be revealed through later flashbacks, such as adding a few scenes to your fic where Ranma, Mousse, and/or Ryouga reflect/recount some of the earlier oni they fought together, before this one dragged them to the Naruto-verse.

Asking for a map is likely the minimum you can get away with without making the scene feel a bit contrived. After all, for all they knew they were dragged back in time to when the demon was first summoned, or dragged into the future. A map would let them see that the lands known to the Hokage cover a pretty large area not analagous to any such area on Earth. It could be fun to throw in some comments from Ryouga about that not being a real map or saying it looks just like this map of China he has... Ryouga's directional sense applies to how he looks at maps after all, at least going by the map he drew in canon.

[Nadrek]

Pale Wolf is right; that setup is important.

For one, that's how I judge whether any given fic is likely to characterize the starting characters; in this case, it looks like the Nerima crew is being treated without much thought by the author, which is a very bad sign for my personal enjoyment, as I have little attachment to the Naruto cast as a whole. Bland and accepting are rather odd for Ranma characters, who are often... headstrong. Them simply giving up on returning home seems out of character, certainly without a great deal of effort on their part.

[mondu_the_fat]

Next time try posting something readable and useful, rather than just a list of 'wouldn't it be cool?' techniques. A list of 'wouldn't it be cool' techniques that was, bear in mind, eighty-eight thousand words long. There are novels shorter than that. And the forum has a 10k word or so posting limit. Maybe 15k. This guy either hacked the forum, or overposted so heavily that the forum's 'this is too damned long' detector glitched out and let it through.

The Management

Christ, now I have the urge to try that out (not that I actually will). Is that an actual word limit, or a character limit? A 10-15k limit sounds right for a 64k character limit.

Now I know what Deedee feels when she's staring at a bright red button in Dexter's lab.

[Pale Wolf]

Just know, you'll get your first official warning if you do.