[Ranma] Identity (book 2 and beyond)

[Jason_Miao]

> 'Good. How are the Sieve and his beloved?'

She refers to Ranma as "him"?

> The labeling of streets, the behavior of traffic signals—he had to understand them to get from place to place.

I've been told that the Japanese address system is incomprehensible anyway.

> He summoned gusts of wind to blow through the streets, and curiously, girls around him would pull furiously on their skirts to keep them down. Why did they do that?

> And then there were shorts and skirts. It was hard enough to see people wearing such things, but to consider doing so himself? What a sickening, disgusting thought. The very notion made him retch. What obsession did these people have with exposing their legs?

A bit of dissonance here.  At one point, there's confusion as to why one would hold down a skirt, in the other, awareness of it.

Also, I'm imagining a scene of bribing Happosai for assistance by using the wind spell, although I'm sure that this isn't that sort of story.


There was some other thought as well, but I forgot it.  If I remember it later, I'll let you know.

[Muphrid]

She refers to Ranma as "him"?

Kohl will need to explain thisEdit: The narrator will need to explain Kohl's thought process, but the idea being that if Ranma's supposed to be the Sieve, Ranma's going to spend most of his time locked up in the tower as a man anyway, and knowing that Ranma and Akane are supposedly involved, it hurts Kohl's brain less to think of Ranma as a man than to think of him as a woman...or so.  Like I said, Kohl needs to explain that a bit.

> He summoned gusts of wind to blow through the streets, and curiously, girls around him would pull furiously on their skirts to keep them down. Why did they do that?

> And then there were shorts and skirts. It was hard enough to see people wearing such things, but to consider doing so himself? What a sickening, disgusting thought. The very notion made him retch. What obsession did these people have with exposing their legs?

A bit of dissonance here.  At one point, there's confusion as to why one would hold down a skirt, in the other, awareness of it.

Yeah, I caught half of the problem when I did my second pass through the wind part, but it seems I didn't get all of it.


Thanks again for the feedback, Jason.

[Muphrid]

An initial draft of 8.4 is now in the main post.

Edit:  to be frank, I've noticed the lack of input aside from Jason's.  I expected that presenting a story for feedback when it was already so far underway would be a barrier, but given the lengthy discussions on other current Ranma pieces, I'd hoped for a somewhat broader base for thoughts.  I can think of a fair number of reasons why people would want to pass on this piece, most of which I think are understandable to be sure, but right now, I'm trying to puzzle out the meaning of the silence and getting nowhere.  It makes me think there must be something fundamentally wrong with the piece that I'm just blind to and can't pick out.

[Brian]

To be homest, I haven't even looked at it.

I am that apathetic to Ranma/Akane.  Nothing you did wrong, just tired and burnt out on that.  Plus, I'm working on a story with somewhat similar themes in the same universe, so....

Can't speak for anyone else.

[Muphrid]

That's perfectly fair.  I won't say I'm thrilled to hear it, but I have my preferences too and won't begrudge anyone for that.

[Halbarad]

For myself, it's mostly that I know very little of the Ranma-verse, aside from some exposure to fanfiction and people that write/critique it. I could review it for technical aspects, but since the story holds very little attraction for me aside from the fact that someone's asking for C&C, I tend to shy away from doing so.

[Merc]

Sorry you didn't really find what you hoped for with regards to C&C and a broader audience/review pool.

I rarely even look in this sub-forum unless someone mentions a non-Haruhi fic being posted here, and yours was the first one to get mentioned over IRC for doing that, so it at least grabbed my attention initially. I don't even mind Ranma/Akane fics, and I'd -wanted- to review it just for not being non-Haruhi stuff here when I first saw the thread...but then seeing the size of the content promptly made me pull back on the idea. =/

I just always lose steam reviewing through huge content, and like Miao, I like to do 2-3 reads so I have first impressions/technical mixed into the review. Almost 50 chapters is incredibly intimidating...

...and I'll also admit that the stuff about ki sorcerers and the whole gender-bending thing about how they work/think did absolutely nothing to draw my interest, so I had attraction problems similar to Brian/Hal if just for different reasons from the get-go.

While size is a huge contributor, I might have gone ahead and made time to read through that monster, and just reviewed from the last chapter onward if it had intrigued me. That it didn't, well that meant that I'd likely lose steam before I even got to the chapters you do want reviewed, barring me actually deciding I actually liked it somewhere in the middle, but I don't want to start reading 40+ chapters for that 'maybe'.

For what it's worth, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it from what I saw scanning through it, it seemed easy to read, well-written, with good narrative flow and mix of dialogue and details (if a bit slanted towards dialogue, but a lot of fanfics do that anyway)...it just didn't grab me.

Again, sorry. =/

[Muphrid]

Well, if the main gimmick of the piece (the Sorcerers and what they represent) doesn't work, that's a problem.  Admittedly, it's not a problem I know how to fix, but just knowing that that is the case will make me think about it and what I could've done differently, so thanks for that.

[Merc]

Well, it's a problem for me certainly, but it's not like it's something that needs 'fixing', it's just different interests.

I mostly just wanted to at least explain why I hadn't reviewed since you were asking for info on that from everyone, and I peeked in the thread since someone mentioned this fic yesterday in chat.

[Muphrid]

Indeed, it's a perfectly understandable reason and it gets me thinking about how the story could've been more widely appealing.  It's something I'd been pondering for some time.  One of the things I was just considering was how choosing a pairing had narrowed the audience (even before Brian's comment to that effect), that perhaps the story would've been better served without that limiting aspect.  That would've put more focus on Ranma himself and simplified things a great deal in terms of the structure and what needed to be accomplished.  It'd also be a very different story, though, so that's something I put in the "what if I'd done this instead...?" category.

Anyway, in all seriousness, it is helpful to me to understand what barriers are in place, and I can see that, at least from the three of you, they are the barriers I expected, so it does put me at ease that it's nothing I didn't think could be.  Thanks for the input.

[Anastasia]

I've tried to read it, but see Brian's reply. Ranma/Akane 100% kills interest, even if other aspects hold promise. I've read a few bits and I do think the story idea holds promise and there's nothing inherently wrong with your ideas. For what it's worth, I don't think Brian and I are representative of Ranma fandom in general. Ranma/Akane's generally popular within the fandom, as far as I've ever noticed.

Indeed, it's a perfectly understandable reason and it gets me thinking about how the story could've been more widely appealing.  It's something I'd been pondering for some time.  One of the things I was just considering was how choosing a pairing had narrowed the audience (even before Brian's comment to that effect), that perhaps the story would've been better served without that limiting aspect.  That would've put more focus on Ranma himself and simplified things a great deal in terms of the structure and what needed to be accomplished.  It'd also be a very different story, though, so that's something I put in the "what if I'd done this instead...?" category.

My personal opinion is that unless the story needs to deal with Ranma's relationships, it shouldn't. The entire premise of Ranma 1/2 involves Ranma's Gordian Knot of relationships, fiancees and romance. Attempting to cut that knot invariably adds baggage to your fic, as well as things you need to resolve on top of your existing premises. You're going to invite over a decade's worth of opinions and fans, as well as comparing your fic against every other fic that's attempted to resolve Ranma's love life. That's why I say it's best to leave it be unless the premise requires it.  With your fic, I see things like ki sorcerers and gender-bending. It sounds like you have a lot going on already, so why foist off more complications to it?

This all said, your premises do interest me and I may give it a read one day anyway. I've tried a few times, but getting past my own biases against Ranma/Akane fics is hard. Eh, hell with it, let's give it a shot.

[Anastasia]

Oh yes, question. Do you want comments on book 1 in this thread or somewhere else?

[Muphrid]

Here is fine.  I just wanted to give an impression of the starting point for what's new.

[Anastasia]

Giving my thoughts as I read each chapter/act plus any relevant feedback at the end. Gonna try knocking this out a few acts at a time, whittle away at things.

Chapter 1, Act 0.

Okay, starts in a rainy, miserable situation. Ranma's at Jusenkyo and things didn't work out thanks to some lightning shooting fellows in black. Emperor Palpantine vibes aside, Ranma runs. Makes sense for him, it's the final attack and all that. Then we get some context about him being here for Akane and some bottled up guilt. Interesting hook here, there's enough going on to pique my interest without telling too much. I'm more curious as to what brought Ranma here than some lightning throwing strangers at the moment. I like it as an in media res opening.

Chapter 1, Act 1.

Back to Ranma's normal life. I'm guessing flashback. Lots of Ranma/Akane stuff here, skimming. Okay, looks like things settled up and Akane's fully embraced the character change she got pushed into for the wedding arc. Shampoo's trying to make amends but Ranma's not interested. By now it feels pretty obvious that he's made up his mind about the fiancee mess. It feels like you have the Ranma/Akane interplay down well (to the point that it reminds me why I dislike that, here nor there though), especially as they walk to school and then end up in the classrooms.

Note: In the bathroom, Ranma thinks of 'Keema'. Isn't that supposed to be Kiima? Can't say that I've ever seen it spelled that way.

Ahahahahhahahhaha. Loved how Ranma chased off the boys in the bathroom. Nice touch of humor there.

Chapter was okay. A lot of Ranma/Akane stuff that I skimmed, read enough to know what's going on without drowning it.

[Jason_Miao]

Mur,

I will also note that had I just read chapter 1 without a "I will review this fic" mindset, I likely would have stopped at Acts 2-3.  I think that once the readers hit chapters 2+, you're mostly good to go.

I didn't comment on that reaction since I have no idea what you can do about it.  You've pretty much done what you could - show the fight at the springs that would let the reader know up front that this isn't going to be just a typical post-38 high school drama romance.  You can't really just skip it from a story perspective, since you do need to lay some groundwork.  Nothing is badly written per se.   

Really, the problem is reader fatigue:  Ranma/Akane has been done so badly, so often, and we've all read a number of those poorly written fics for years, so seeing more post-38 relationships, our (or at least, my) trained reaction is to stop reading before I've spent too much time on it.  I was half-tempted to recommend that you cut most of chapter 1, but I think I would have served you poorly had I done so: in this case, it really is us, your readers, not you.


Really busy lately, but I'll download and read the latest act once I get a bit more time.