Natsume & Kurumi on Ranma's training trip - need suggestions

[Spokavriel]

Thats too much for me to handle all at once so I'm going to focus on Kuno.

Here is what I see as the way his mind works. He is the best fighter in Nerima. No Girl can harm him. Any girl to touch him is only clearly showing that she has affection for him. He never loses. Any "Tricks" he complains about are dark magic tricks to make others believe he failed when such a thing is obviously and clearly impossible. So what if Akane makes him swoon (not knocks him unconscious) with her touch. It is proof that their love is strong as those in the writings of poets. For if maids may swoon for a bard may not a man swoon for his love?

Any girl to knock him out gets added into that self deception. Only reason he doesn't believe Nabiki loves him too is because she has never and refuses to touch him in any way size shape or form.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

It makes sense, but, is Kuno really that convinced he can only lose because of black magic? While he does enjoy using flowery pose and spouting poetry when he believes it makes him look good, the absolute only time I can recall him referring to black magic is after Ranma makes the pigtailed girl "vanish" from his arms - he doesn't even call Ranma a sorcerer, just "a practitioner of black magic", and he never levels that accusation against Ranma again that I recall.

[Spokavriel]

Not quite, you read it wrong. He doesn't believe he can lose and he doesn't believe he has ever lost. Any appearance of him having lost was a Black Magic Trick because only dark and foul magics could make others believe such a falsehood.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I admit the error, but still, doesn't Kuno simply call the "claims" that Ranma had beaten him to be a 'blatant falsehood'? Claiming merely that Ranma had cheated and lied about having beaten him, and insisting that he would never admit to having been defeated? As I said, he only implies Ranma might be a black magician once, and doesn't seem to ever refer to his losses as anything more than "lies, slander and untruths" spread by those jealous of him.

But, anyway, do you think that Natsume/Kurumi would find this out after they've beaten him up for harassing Akane like that (she is their "little sister", so if anything they're going to be ever more upset about the "duel for a date" contest than Ranma was), or before? If before, would they be willing to risk it anyway as they intend to protect Akane?

[Spokavriel]

Your asking about a situation that I don't know the characters in their new upbringing well enough to say on. As to my insistence on the sorcerer I saw it in the subtitles many times. Not just in that episode.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

I see.

So, what remains to be talked about? I guess... how the different training trip has affected the teens' martial arts skills? I'm inclined to say that Natsume and Kurumi don't know their canon ki attacks (Natsume's Ice Wind and Kurumi's Fire Lash, or their tagteam Ring of Dragon Fire): not only are such moves too powerful to let them have straight off the bat, I don't see how they could have ended up going to the same masters who canonically taught them those moves on this very different training trip.

Similarly, I don't think they'd wield their canon weapons: Genma seems to prefer to avoid teaching weapon focus, likely because of the understandable logic that a fighter who relies on a weapon is a lesser threat if disarmed, while a fighter who relies on their naked body cannot be disarmed. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't be able to wield weapons, they just wouldn't be masters of them or have favored weapons - the Saotomes canonically seem to go for a "jack of all trades, master of none" approach, prefering to be able to use any weapon (no matter how unlikely) with a credible amount of skill rather than mastering one or two. Ranma might only be as good at fencing as an experienced kendo master, but he can also wield a spear, an axe, a dagger, a staff, kama, nunchucks, cudgels, flowers, pinwheels, ropes and anything else he can lay his hands on with the same amount of skill.

The trade off is that the girls are all of Ranma's level of physical ability, though the trio as a whole may be slightly better/worse, due to having had each other to train against all through the trip.

[Spokavriel]

How about this idea.
First of all Happosai and Soun both use weapons. Even if its his fan or pipe most of the time Happosai is still using them as weapons.
What if in addition to the core school of Anything goes Happosai also taught the girls in their traditional weapons.

In a way that would be a point to support the connection to them and Soun in Genma's mind because he's a weapons crutch artist so why wouldn't he teach his daughters to use weapons too.

Along with that the Technique might be one Happosai had worked out but never had a second participant strong enough to try it with. Few people would tag team with him as their partner after all. So as a challenge to show when they were deserving to be heirs to the Anything Goes school they were instructed to first master Happy's little twist on the Hiryu Shoten Ha. A Team attack which because of the dual participants could be launched in any direction and is independent of an enemies movements on the field.

That scenario though would make it so that making them give up their weapons would be dishonoring their "Father"/sensei's teaching that gave them any proficiency with them in the first place.

[frice2000]

Ok read through all 6 pages of you two talking about this. Interesting ideas that the two of you tossed about.

Now it sounds like you're pretty set on the Kitsune Ranma thing. I just have one problem with that though you do know Kitsune live an incredibly long time. How exactly is a marriage with a entity that can live thousands of years going to work? Will his uncursed form 'die' and his kitsune form remain? If you're going to toss in a lot of mythological components wouldn't Inari wonder what was going on with this new kitsune? Why would he seek a cure once he learned to control his new body? He'd be stronger and could look entirely human at will there need to be many, many downsides to that form. I know you don't want to go the whole girl form thing and I can understand that but that was one of his major motivations in cannon. I don't think a decrease in strength until he learns about his new form would be quite as driving a motivation for him unless he was similarly afflicted with suddenly being the wrong gender or something worse. Perhaps being neuter or something in that form until he learns proper shapeshifting would get some of the cannon drive of curing it back? You have some things to think about there because you are overpowering him a lot once he learns about the form and if you do a paranormal entity of the week thing you've got issues with him finding places and things that would actually teach him.

As to changing one of them into a giant walking fuzzball of a Yeti i don't like that idea at all. Why limit yourself to Asian cannon? Mix in some other mythologies. Some sort of plant creature like a Dryad would be pretty humorous. There was a Anime Adventure chain where it was briefly mentioned that a being a Dryad would calm one down because they had sap for blood or some such so if you inflict that on a fast to anger personality and it totally mellows them and eliminates a lot of their killer instinct you've got a pretty cute premise locked in while also avoiding the problem of making her crazy conspicuous. Sure she wouldn't be human as I have outlined but if you want to end up doing a pairing between Ranma and her at least they'd both live for a long long time...If you do a yeti it causes too many problems. Too hard to explain away, too strong, too easily seen, too many people would be afraid of it. I just don't like it. A Yuki-onna works better when you briefly mentioned that as you've got a form that can at least pass as human. Making her not pass as human precludes so many plot points I just don't think it's wise.

As to Genma's curse I'd go with a personality changing spring or even a sex changing spring or both. Maybe that Drowned Priest spring combined with the panda spring would also be funny. A courteous peace loving panda priest would be funny. Alternatively I could see them picking a spring out of spite and since Genma went on throughout their respective training about girls and they wanted to punish him a strange drowned girl spring makes sense. Maybe a Spring of Drowned child whose obsessed with cute things. A mini-Azusa Ranma with water would be interesting and I'm sure the two of them would get a lot of joy of tormenting Genma after the training he's put them through.

To Ukyou why change their perspective that she is a boy. Maybe have either Natsume or Kurumi of them develop a little crush to 'him' and when hen pops up they are affectionate and then they realize he's a girl. Could have some humor value there. Speaking of Ukyou why wouldn't Genma have sold them all off for the benefit of their great training quest. He could have sold a 'Tendo' and this will bring more then just Chardin down on the real Tendo sisters heads. This could even be a convientent excuse for them to all be better trained and differing from their cannon starting points as they might have to deal with random fiancées showing up every so often. This would also prepare them for the weirdness of whatever forms try end up in.

Personality wise you realize them getting raised by Genma is going to change them dramatically right? They'll have grown up with parental supervision and be significantly stronger as well as feel like they already have a family even a very dysfunctional one. That 'family' perspective could be a problem for you as well as I think two girls raised with a boy from such a young age are going to see him as a brother more then a potential love interest.

To the eventual arrival in Nerima and the Tendos reaction...Make Soun and the rest totally refuse them entry. They are too weird and strange and Genma's is stuck in whatever cursed form ya give him. Then have them go to Nodoka's while Genma works on Soun. I mean Genma has no fear of Ranma not being considered manly why wouldn't he miss his wife and Ranma has two potential wives right with him at the start doesn't he? Go to the Saotome home first and maybe have the girls introduce themselves to the Tendos seperately? Why do the standard cannon reveal?

As to the situation at School and Kunou and such I think you need to do something unexpected. Have him fall for one of thrum but then have her scare the hell out of him and eliminate the conflict. Or alternatively have the two new 'sisters' try to protect their weaker new sister from all the perverts unwanted advances. This could set Kunou up to see them not as love interests but rivals to his affection with Akane much like he sees male Ranma.

As to which real Tendou to engage him to definitely Kasumi. The cute fox form would have her all over that relationship. She might also want a obvious spiritual figure to introduce her to that world as she's always struck me as a if not religious at least interested in that sort of thing person.

Anyway cutting this off it's getting long. Excuse any spelling errors typed this out on my iPad.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Spokavriel:
So, you're suggesting that Happosai actually taught the girls the basics of the weapon techniques that would culminate in them using a rug beater and a ribbon respectively, as he figured that they needed the extra advantage such tricks would give them, and Genma saw this as further evidence of their connection to Soun? That, I like, it makes sense, though Natsume might just have started with staves and graduated to using a rug beater because it's innocuous, easily explained and easily replaced.

Secondly, you're suggesting that the Ring of Dragon Fire might be a scroll that the girls were given by Happosai as a goal to aim towards? That could work, but I don't think it would be wise to let them have aura-infusion or that move right at the start of the story. Letting Genma declare that they're finally ready to master this move and study it so that they can up the ante, ala how Ranma eventually learns the Hiryu Shoten Ha when he needs to unlock that level of power, that could work well though...

Frice2000:
I'll wait for Spokavriel to comment on your post before I speak up. Don't want to end up looking stupid again.

[frice2000]

God damn the above looks like an idiot wrote it. That's what I get trying to type on this thing. Yay $8 bluetooth keyboard coming soon. And sigh at my little net book for being replaced with this ten hour battery life thing.

Oh and i thought of a pretty good cursed form you could give someone that would give them a lot of problems and introduce lots of plot elements while still maintaining their humanity but making then 'odd'. Spring of Drowned Medium/Necromancer. You're already planning on introducing a lot of mythological elements and spirits so it makes sense to make a character like tat. You can run the gamut with their abilites from Sixth Senseish just see the dead to Kelley Armstrongish see/raise/control the dead, angels, demons, and other animals and spirits. That gives you a lot of nice leeway and ability to plan things. Also the change would not be at all readily apparent (not even to them at first). I could see you give a curse like that to Ryouga or one of the two sisters quite easily and it would have a really interesting ripple effect on the story. It doesn't overpower anyone in the least, it's a rare perspective to see in a Ranma fic, and it doesn't even nessecairly change how they look or their physical abilities.

Not commenting till the Powerpuff girl Who packs heat says something? Pffft...

[Spokavriel]

Why are you waiting for me to respond its your story idea?

As to Inari getting involved I don't think anyone before now brought up Kami intervention. But there were some down sides discussed for Ranma's Kitsune form. Biggest one being Genma getting hold of the Soul Gem. Making it so Ranma may have all his skills but ends up without any Ki enhancements. I'm assuming like in the other stories Space Knight puts any super human feats down to Ki enhancement.

Could you imagine a Ranma limited to only his skill and no extra healing strength ore even speed benefits above a normal individual trying to get by in Nerima?

You seem to be using Taro's Yeti as an example on pure strength for a Yeti. There are allot of stories and many make them no stronger than they should be proportionately for a human. But I do think looking back making her 2 times her normal size is a bit too much 50% larger would still work and not break believability on Taro considering how much larger a Bull is than a Human to add up to his massive bulk.

If you expected me to comment on the rest well its not my place because its not my fic they are interesting ideas.

The Necromancer idea came in when I was trying to post. Weren't you complaining about the Kitsune being too overpowered already?

[frice2000]

Necromancer isn't that overpowered if you make your own rules. Yes they can possibly raise the dead given lots of energy, time, and practice but that isn't an instant win nothing will be a challenge power up. Seeing spirits and the like though makes for an interesting perspective since we are already talking about a story with lots of spirits/ghosts and now we're adding even more.

I don't know if you've read it (likely not) but the upper end Necromancers that I described from Kelley Armstrongs work (not saying do a cross just a convient example) are really not all that powerful. You see the dead and spirits and rather then that over powering you it could make you kind of crazy. They all would want something and you wouldn't be able to give them all what they would want so they would harass you. Maybe if you did something nice for a powerful one it'd pay you back later but that doesn't give them too much power. Also on the low end scale with just seeing the dead and hearing them not over powering them at all. Just giving another insight in what you've made into a very paranormal retelling of Ranma.

[Spokavriel]

So turn another character into Gosenkugi only with Schizophrenia.

The books might be fun but if you bother with Necromancers you usually at minimum have to have enough power to call a spirit back from the afterlife even if they are trapped in the darkest most restricted corners of hell. That doesn't mean to life but without raising of dead spirits it isn't really a Necromancer.

Its Whoppie Goldberg's character in Ghost getting harassed more often.

[frice2000]

How does returning a spirit to this plane temporarily from whatever afterlife overpower them in the context of this story? They can talk to a 'ghost' or other spirit. That just gives interesting plots and other ways to resolve things. It doesn't strike me as an ability that makes a character a one shot one kill kind of character all of a sudden. The worst i could see happening is Ryouga getting the curse and raising spirits of Martial Arts Masters he comes across in his travels and learning some of their techniques. If done properly this balances the Kitsune and other Mythological elements you've introduced as you have higher end spiritual techniques being introduced and a reason and valid place for then to have come from. That makes sense to me and it gives you an out from a Spiritual menace of the week which i think could get old after awhile.

If you want a summary of those books I mentioned in general yeah the strong ones in that series can raise the dead, raise spirits who are no longer on earth, etc. Most of the really powerful ones usually end up going crazy and detach from the physical world in a lot of ways. Again great book series if you're interested the series starts with a book called 'Bitten' but that introduces her werewolves. You don't get the other paranormal characters till a couple books in. Great book series though but I was just using it as a quick example...But no one knows of it it seems which is very sad . If anyone is interested I do have some ebook links I could send you via PM.

[SpaceKnight of Chaos]

Ignoring the last three posts because this post is long enough already and this damn forum leaps around like a frog on a hot tin roof when trying to write long posts. Besides, I think they may tie into what I have already.

Frice2000:
Just to point out, giving that to Ranma would probably make him even more of a chaos magnet than being a girl did. If Ranma thought having random guys crushing on him and trying to flirt with him were bad, how would he react to lost souls and possibly spiritual entities coming to bug him to demand he can solve their problems, simply because he's the only one who can hear/see them? Would even work for Necromancer (not to mention that the original definition of such a mystic would be identical to a Medium: they were divinists who communicated with the spirits of the dead to discover secrets - it was some time in the Dark Ages that Necromancy got confused with Nigermancy) - and I can suddenly see someone explaining that this is why the stereotype of the "crazy/corpse raising" necromancer is so common: forcibly binding them is the best way to make them shut up!

Besides which, there's actually quite a few ghosts, demons, kami and obake in the series proper. There were those living/demonic paintings, the cursed swimsuit that drowned women, Kogane, that old woman's ghost who wanted Happosai to steal her paintings, the lust-impregnated mirror that made ghostly clones to embody that repressed emotion, an ugly horse kami, an even uglier boar kami, two giant jellyfish kami/demons, incense that made your inner evil become a seperate entity, incense that caused your shadow to come to life and act out your desires in a dark slant, and that's just off the top of my head.

Spokavriel:
After all you've contributed to this, it felt wrong to shunt you out of the discussion.

Frice2000 Again:
As Spok mentioned, nobody mentioned the idea of Inari getting involved until you brought it up.

As Spok just pointed out, as well, Ranma's kitsune form might not be quite so annoying to Ranma as a girl curse was, but it will still be a two-edged sword. As he mentioned, there's the problem of the Soul Gem: if anyone aside from Ranma has it, they can not only cut off his power (no ki in human form, meaning he's got none of his superhuman physical abilities, while in kitsune form it traps him as an ordinary talking fox until he gets hot water), they can also control him, like a genie and it's lamp. Add to the fact that Ranma has to keep it close by at all times or he gets weaker the further away it is, and that means that he's got to carry his biggest vulnerability around for anyone to steal. I'm also pretty convinced that even when shapeshifted into a humanoid form Ranma isn't going to be anywhere near as strong as in his human form: Kitsune are beguilers, not brawlers. All that yoki is good for is illusions and other trickery, he's about as powerful as canon season 1 Akane, at best, in his kitsune form. It has its uses, particularly as Ranma is a tricky deceptive sort, but it's a real question for Ranma. Do I want to keep this? Do I want to get cured? When he realises the issue of the aging problem, assuming that it even works and he won't simply die when his true form gets old enough (and remember, martial artists can live a long time anyway), that's going to play into his problems figuring out whether he wants to be all human again or not.

I have to admit, I was a little leery about the yeti to begin with, though Spok has good points on it. The main reason I was adverse to the Yukionna is the possibility of it being too strong, though, as has been established, it's possible to fix that, as with the Tanuki and Kitsune curses.

Hmmm... Curse of Panda Priest could be a very interesting curse, if either of you can suggest what he'd actually look like in such a curse.

As for why changing Ranma's perspective of Ukyo... why not? In canon, Ranma hasn't had much interaction with other boys, never mind with girls, and so it's natural he wouldn't be too clear at distinguishing Ukyo's gender. Here, he's travelling with two other girls, and they are girls themselves, so there's no reason for him to think "boyish behavior: boy". And, as Spok mentioned, it could lead to a situation where Ukyo finally gets tired of the others treating her as another boy and childishly exposing herself to prove that she is a girl.

I was aware of the personality changing, but thank you for bringing it out into the open.

And that is a very good point about their arrival. Them getting turned away at the Tendo Dojo as travelling freaks or actual monsters and then going to Nodoka's house makes a lot of sense - as you've pointed out, having a "Spring of Drowned Kitsune" or "Spring of Drowned Necromancer" curse doesn't mess with Ranma's gender, so it's not going to make Genma fear that Nodoka will immedaitely proclaim Ranma to be "unmanly" for it and so it's safe to go back there.

And that's a very interesting thought about how to handle Kuno and the "False Tendos".