[Ranma] Identity (rewrite)

[Muphrid]

Thanks for your in-depth commentary as always, Arakawa.

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The 'beetle the size of a Volkswagen' was an amusing touch. (I notice your writing style involves doing lots of shout-outs and references, including ones that it might not make strict sense for Ranma to know about. This was the first one that I actually found amusing, though. Well, okay, that and the reference to Nethack; but before this chapter they were ignorable at best, and sometimes slightly distracting. This is a personal point, so you probably don't want to consider changing it....)

Yeah, as we discussed on IRC, that Nethack joke will probably just go.

I liked the scene of Ranma in the sorcerer-priest's laboratory inside a collapsing mountain. For whatever reason, the basic fact of them being cut off from everyone else like that works to give the Jyuusenkyo setting a thrilling sense of scale that wasn't present in your earlier descriptions. (And goes to show that descriptions aren't the only thing that serves to give a sense of the setting.)

(The early portions of Ranma treat it as just this place; whereas it is obviously an ancient site of power and every tribe within a hundred miles has some kind of interest in it.

I also haven't read the Saffron arc, so I'm not sure how much work canon already does to give a clear sense of the layout and infrastructure of the location, and how much additional work you may want to do to ensure the grandeur kicks in earlier.)

Interesting thought.  I'm not sure what I could do (as early as chapter 1) to try to give that sense of scale, but it's something I'm interested in pursuing.

I'm not sure how much Cologne should be able to infer from the Ranma/Shampoo scene here, regarding their earlier confrontation; I think it would be wise to go back and double-check this scene against what she's supposed to know when preparing to go before the Twelve, when she suddenly discovers Shampoo has been keeping things from her.

Yeah, I knew that was a weak spot; Cologne ought to know more than she does, really, especially when she plays a part in Shampoo's scheme here.  I couldn't have Mousse do it because he would never help Shampoo try to get Ranma unless he (Mousse) got something pretty nice in return.

It was interesting to re-read the whole fic up to now and take stock of my impressions. I think I said before that there are two disparate threads here, the first being the adventure-story in an exotic location and the second being the Ranma/Akane romance. The real challenge is to make both of these things interesting and relate them to one another.

The adventure-story aspect of things is very well done; I enjoyed putting on the soundtrack to Wild China while reading the Amazon council portion. It also seems like there's a solid series of hooks and reveals (in terms of things like: Ranma really being the next Sieve candidate (if I understand correctly), the Riverfolk turning out to be Amazons, and whatever weird thing it is the Sorcerers do with curse water (that has yet to be explained)). There are elements that seem to foreshadow that something will happen without necessarily divulging what (e.g. what happens if the Sorcerers realize that Ranma and not Saffron is the guy they want for Sieve?).

The setting is also fairly lush, and is sort of an element of interest in itself. Something like the details of the Council of Twelve and Amazon politics, I found added an enjoyable amount of detail to the adventure. If you might consider polishing the worldbuilding further, that's only because the part that's done already works very well.

One minor detail of worldbuilding it occurs to me you could add, for example: so far, you've only called the ki Sorcerer tribe 'Sorcerers'. However, is that really the tribe's proper name? Much like the world-at-large calls the Joketsuzoku tribe 'Chinese Amazons', and the Sorcerers call them 'Riverfolk', while the Amazons in the fic call themselves both 'Amazons' (in a casual context) and 'Joketsuzoku' ('Village of Woman Heroes' -- the tribe's proper name), you could give the Sorcerers a second 'formal' name that's a bit less generic. I notice they have (or had) Princes -- are they a Kingdom of some kind, much like the Amazons style themselves a Village?

Thus you could continue calling them 'Sorcerers', but establish that they have a formal name, something more flowery and appropriate to them being in China, the way 'Village of Woman Heroes' works for the Amazons. The Sorcerers' Ki manipulation is only superficially similar to Western sorcery anyways, much like the Amazon tribe is no relation of the Greek Amazons....

It's interesting you focus on this aspect of it; in the original writing it took a good bit of time for the portrayal of the Amazons and the Sorcerers to mature to where it is now (I was so unclear on how the Sorcerers should arm themselves, they used a weapon I won't even name here, instead of their characteristic staves).  I am indeed quite proud of all the background that has amassed, that it gives a clear sense of reality to the story that is part of what I strive for--portraying unusual locations or places with the sense that you could grab a handful of dirt from it and feel its granularity; that you could dust off their history books and find stories that are believed to be true yet shrouded in uncertainty thanks to the imperfections of human memory, or the willing misdeeds of men who tried to tweak history for their own purposes.

To tell the truth, the major worldbuilding of the piece has been more or less done for so long (in terms of settling the details in outline) that I forgot it was actually pretty cool to come up with, so I'm glad you brought it back up.

Still, I like the idea of giving the Sorcerers a more formal name.  I have no idea what that name would be (should it contain the word "Sorcerer"?  should it be something like "Tribe of the ... the ... magic ripple speakers?"), but that would be cool to do.

In terms of backstory, this seems to be the scene you've been building up to for, to justify Ranma's determination to get a cure this time at any cost. The connection here is utterly tangential, though; it's more like Akane has flown off the handle in the usual fashion, and then Ranma has flown off the handle at the 'not even a man' comment and is using the issue of his curse (if unconsciously) as a way to escape the basic issue of not being able to deal with Akane when these kinds of situations arise....

I think the basic problem Ranma actually has to confront is what to do about these kinds of quarrels. Either Akane is going to stop picking fights of her own accord (which is an idea this scene explicitly and thoroughly josses, to the extent of Ukyo lampshading the notion for us), or Ranma is going to have to figure out some different way to respond to her, that curbs her unreasonable behaviour. (Basically, in a way that makes it clear to Akane that either she has to make an effort to be more reasonable, or (as a matter of basic obviousness) things will not be able to work between them. In this scene, however, Ranma seems to me to be acquiescing in a way that validates her unreasonable behaviour.) Ranma's fetch-quest to Jyuusenkyo is basically a distraction from this main issue.

So, either Akane needs to change; and, after the degree of uncharitable behaviour she exhibits in this scene, this will take a lot of work on her end to motivate. Or Ranma needs to use the subsequent events in the main story to realize what the real problem is, which will ironically make the curse be a secondary issue again.

At the very least, the narrative needs to be more in tune with this glaring irony.

As I mentioned on IRC yesterday, this also is and has been a major weak point of the story in its various iterations.  Are there alternatives?  Perhaps.  Something I've considered is the Guide and Plum calling Ranma and saying they're having trouble with some natives they're unfamiliar with--something that Ranma politely declines to deal with because he feels (at the time) that he has something good going with Akane and he doesn't want to leave her alone.  Then, having a major spat with Akane, he could realize that he doesn't know how to deal with that, but going into a fight is something he does know how to deal with, and so going to the Guide's help would help him get his mind off things.  This would require some restructuring of chapter 1, but that's about it.  Ironically, it requires a bit more awareness on Ranma's part to make that kind of decision.

Am I sold on such a change?  Admittedly, no.  I was quite fond of Ranma walking into the spring ground in chapter 1 totally unaware, but it may need to be done just to fix the logical issues that have cropped up.

As far as Akane's role, she'll have plenty of time to feel guilty about her part in this.  If, as we discussed, I reorder things so that her chapter comes before Ranma's here, then we'll get a more immediate sense of her regret and remorse, which I think would help paint her sympathetically despite the mistakes she makes.  The only downside is in terms of spacing and timing; I wanted to do Ranma's chapter first so that the question of what happened to Akane could be put aside, and similarly, the question of what happens with Henna could be put aside for a chapter until it's resolved in chapter 8.  But, portraying Akane sympathetically is important enough that I may sacrifice that timing.

One of the big questions about how to fix this chapter (whether "this chapter" ends up being 6 or 7) is the role that Henna the Sorcerer Priest plays in helping to probe at Ranma's psyche.  For reasons that will become clear, Henna is a reflection of Ranma.

Originally, Henna's role was quite simple:  Ranma is unhappy with being cursed.  Henna, in turn, is unhappy with her gender as well and is willing to take more extreme actions to remedy this.  This was one of the original intents of Henna's character, but as Ranma's issues with being cursed have become less and less relevant to his character in this story, this issue resonates less and less as well.  It could very well be that the role Henna plays in the story so far is more of a vestigial remnant than strictly relevant from a character standpoint.

So what do we do with Henna and Ranma?  The elements that Henna helps introduce are too important to wantonly cut.  Can she help probe at his decision to run from a problem he faced rather than confront it, as he did with Akane?  Possible, but that would require more personal development of Henna's character.  Can she help probe at how far Ranma would be willing to go to see his goals met?  This strikes me as having more traction, but it could also be predictable and trite.  Beyond that, I'm not sure what is the best thing to do with her; I only know that for her to be relevant from a character development standpoint, Ranma must see something of himself in her, something he wishes to avoid becoming.


Anyway, I believe that rearranging things so that Akane's chapter comes first will mitigate some issues with flashbacks being irrelevant.  Akane is missing; she will be captured by Sorcerers, and one of the big questions will be, "You're a Japanese girl; what are you doing here?"  Even if Akane doesn't answer that question aloud, it seems to me like a more natural time to introduce how this situation came to be.  The big question then will be how to use the character of Henna and the plot of being trapped in the mountain to help probe at Ranma's character.

[Muphrid]

So, based on previous feedback and other discussions, I have extensively reworked chapter six.  The current version is almost entirely newly written material that, I hope, has cut down acceptably on flashbacks and tied in the one that is left better to the action and themes of the material around it.

The current version of the chapter can be found here.

[Arakawa]

... and now, after a long delay, I finally get to have a proper look at this.

*anticipation*

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First, getting minor things like typos out of the way.

The question questions were where this attack would come from and when.

Not sure what you were trying to say here.

I cover the other end of the path.

Should that be "I'll cover"?

but the flakes surrounded her and exploded right under her nose.

Do you mean to say that she raised the shield, but at that point the flakes were already within the radius that the shell covers?

Various other battle banter: I'll be honest, I didn't really understand the 'potty training' quip... though later mention of it suggests that this is some kind of artefact from the manga, which I might just not be familiar with.

And Ryoga being mentioned not once but twice as not being able to find his way to where people are currently practically throwing pieces of mountain at each other nearby, may be a bit over the top. He can generally manage at least that much navigation, surely? The punchline for the joke is pretty great, I'll admit:

"Ah, excuse me." A finger tapped Wuya on the shoulder. "I'm not quite sure where I am. Do you think it's going to rain here?"

Wuya turned, and—

WHAM! A red umbrella struck her in the ribs; the Captain crumpled like a tin can.

But the setup doesn't make sense. Perhaps I might be visualizing incorrectly how far away he is from the battle before this, or what kind of terrain is blocking his view, or something?

Sorcerers tended to fight in smaller groups, but with this bare minimum party, Wuya was at a great disadvantage.

Isn't the logic here that the party is too large for Sorcerer tactics to work well, rather than too small ("bare minimum")?

Though its scorpion tale worked its way free,

Should be 'scorpion tail'.

Its droll ran down the cliffside

I racked my brain for a long time to figure out what kind of exotic creature has a body part called a "droll", until I realized that this probably means "drool".

"My pets, please," said Henna, "go after them."

That's a confusing sentence. Is that meant as a command to the pets: "go after them!", or an invitation to the Amazons: "My pets. (sarcastic) Please, feel free to go after them."?

His knees wobbled like they were made of popsicle sticks instead of sturdy bone, but he grabbed a metal bar pull himself up.

"metal bar pull himself up" -- there seems to be a word missing....

He stared at the metal bars and saw nothing but an impenetrable barrier, one that refused to stay still even as he gazed at it intently. Such was the loss of orientation and strength from the burning chemical in the air.

The second sentence is a fragment; not sure, maybe you could join them together through a colon?

He grabbed in two placed and snapped the wing bone in two.

"two placed" -- probably a typo....

A couple of more minor notes:

" 'No point'?"

This is just a typographical quibble -- the large space between the double and single opening quotes looks kind of ugly in the HTML formatting.... I guess not much can be done about that, though.

But most striking was the giant monstrosity that patrolled the room. It preened itself with a bird's head and beak. Its massive tusks disturbed the air whenever it moved. Its heavy, ape-like body rattled the room with each step it took.

For whatever reason, I'm suddenly reminded of the Forgotten Beasts in Dwarf Fortress. If I remember correctly, those are computer-generated with a random set of body parts much like the mutated creatures here.

General Comments

The first scene starts with the Sorcerers investigating the aftermath of the eruption. Rather than hinting vaguely at the priests being up to something, we see fairly quickly that they've been using Jyusenkyo water to mutate an army of horrific monsters -- but, to make for an interesting dilemma, they are doing so in the hope of ending their reliance on magic.

From high above, a brown, flaky substance descended upon the Sorcerers. As the flakes rubbed together, the air sparked, and the mixture ignited in a flurry of small explosions!

That's a pretty good way of resolving the whole argument about exploding batter. The description is quite specific and phrased in terms of what the explosion looks like, so I just get the mental image of the battle instead of being tempted to quibble about physics.

Wheatberries. I wonder if those are a reference to something?

Their blood from their noses mixed with the melting ice on Ranma's fist, leaving a diluted pink spray.

I'm not 100% sure, but this feels like an increase in gore relative to the action so far (and the average for Ranma fanfic)... anyhow, that's your decision. The swearing later, on the other hand, is something Ranma first does in Chapter 2, I think, so that's not new?

The issue isn't necessarily that a given level of gore and swearing isn't appropriate, it's to make sure that the reader who starts the fic doesn't get a false impression and then surprised by things escalating midway. For whatever reason, blood spraying from a broken nose and shards of a terracotta bowl stuck in someone's face feels like a definite step into less cartoony territory compared to what came before.

Huh, Henna suggests that Ranma is an interesting subject to study... effects of Jyuusenkyo curses on magic. Something doesn't add up in what she's saying (intentionally, I suppose?) since from hints dropped earlier I was kind of guessing the Sorcerers already curse their own kind. I'm guessing that since the next place they take Ranma is to get attacked by several intelligent beasts, we're nowhere near the bottom of this particular rabbit hole....

(Reading to the end of the chapter: yeap. I believe this is what you call 'pretty fucked up'.)

Compared to this version, this is more clear right off the bat about the fact of the Sorcerer-priests doing their experimentation on animals for combat. The previous version had a very eerie feel with Ranma and just one priest trapped inside the mountain, but the hints there were, in retrospect, probably a bit too oblique and obvious at the same time. (It's difficult to describe... but I suppose at some point the reader starts to guess at what's going on and is tired of the author pretending like it's still very obscure? The old version was just barely edging towards that, I suppose.) This new version seems like a much better tradeoff. The dynamic between Wuya and Henna was also interesting to witness, being told in pantomime as it was; it's interesting how that forces a writer to put in details you otherwise don't get in a conversation. Ranma getting dragged in as a spy is another great complication.

So, this part of the fic seems to be going according to plan.

Now, on to the scene with Akane. This part of the fic gets just a short treatment in this chapter.... This version seems to acknowledge the fact that, by this point, Ranma and Akane's usual dynamic amounts to a stalemate; so, in the very first scene, Ranma tries some drastic honesty, so that things will either develop, or collapse, I suppose. That makes sense to me as a risk he'd eventually take. And, in terms of how it goes down, it already starts to make sense that Ranma would grasp at an excuse to temporarily put some distance between himself and Akane, for a chance to think things over or perhaps gather resolve. So, this seems a good start on a way to get the story the place it needs to go without overthinking things.

Ranma also has his realization at the end of the chapter as Kumkum is killed, so now we're effectively filling in the middle of this arc from both ends. That's not a bad structure to go with.

[Muphrid]

Thanks for taking a look at this, Arakawa.

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Do you mean to say that she raised the shield, but at that point the flakes were already within the radius that the shell covers?

Yes, precisely.  I'll try to clarify this point.

Various other battle banter: I'll be honest, I didn't really understand the 'potty training' quip... though later mention of it suggests that this is some kind of artefact from the manga, which I might just not be familiar with.

It probably doesn't work with Wuya's perspective; hitting people with a toddler's potty is something Mousse has done before, so this was intended as a reference to that.  I've been doing a lot of research to try to make battle scenes more detailed and with more of a conscious effort to try to incorporate stuff from the manga.  A lot of the detail with Ukyo's fighting wasn't really in the original and it should've been.  Mousse was reduced to a few simple tricks with chains and stuff, and it wasn't really elaborate or detailed in the way I wanted.  So this was part of that effort, but since Wuya can't recognize the absurdity of what she's been hit with, it probably needs someone to call Mousse out on it more, or maybe it just doesn't need to happen.

And Ryoga being mentioned not once but twice as not being able to find his way to where people are currently practically throwing pieces of mountain at each other nearby, may be a bit over the top. He can generally manage at least that much navigation, surely? The punchline for the joke is pretty great, I'll admit:

Yeah, this is probably too much over the top.

Isn't the logic here that the party is too large for Sorcerer tactics to work well, rather than too small ("bare minimum")?

Yeah, will fix.

The first scene starts with the Sorcerers investigating the aftermath of the eruption. Rather than hinting vaguely at the priests being up to something, we see fairly quickly that they've been using Jyusenkyo water to mutate an army of horrific monsters -- but, to make for an interesting dilemma, they are doing so in the hope of ending their reliance on magic.

Yeah, I feel this version is much better just being direct about things.  As it was, one could be forgiven to think Ranma's efforts to survive in the overrun mountain weren't really relevant to the larger story.  In the end, I don't feel too bad for giving up on that version.  It sped everything up a bit, which is seldom a bad thing in a work of this size, and it only required a single scene out of Ranma's POV.  Since Wuya is going to be a more and more important character anyway in the future, that's not a bad thing either.

That's a pretty good way of resolving the whole argument about exploding batter. The description is quite specific and phrased in terms of what the explosion looks like, so I just get the mental image of the battle instead of being tempted to quibble about physics.

Yeah, taking a more stringent description of these exploding tempura flakes helped things along quite a bit.

Wheatberries. I wonder if those are a reference to something?

Nothing in particular.  Was looking for things that grow on the plateau and these seemed rather apt for the situation.

I'm not 100% sure, but this feels like an increase in gore relative to the action so far (and the average for Ranma fanfic)... anyhow, that's your decision. The swearing later, on the other hand, is something Ranma first does in Chapter 2, I think, so that's not new?

The issue isn't necessarily that a given level of gore and swearing isn't appropriate, it's to make sure that the reader who starts the fic doesn't get a false impression and then surprised by things escalating midway. For whatever reason, blood spraying from a broken nose and shards of a terracotta bowl stuck in someone's face feels like a definite step into less cartoony territory compared to what came before.

Yeah, I may try to dial it back a tad.  I got a funny comment about chapter 1 about Ranma cutting his knuckles ("why should a few punches cut his knuckles if he can get buried under 10 tons of rock and come out just a little pained?" or something like that).  I think it appeals to me to see that fighting does damage to people physically and the pain gives them an opportunity to reflect on what they've done, but there is such a thing as too much detail here, for sure.

As far as Ranma swearing... I dunno.  I got the impression he swears more (or says things equivalent to swearing) more than what some translations might indicate.  Will think on this point too, though.

Huh, Henna suggests that Ranma is an interesting subject to study... effects of Jyuusenkyo curses on magic. Something doesn't add up in what she's saying (intentionally, I suppose?) since from hints dropped earlier I was kind of guessing the Sorcerers already curse their own kind. I'm guessing that since the next place they take Ranma is to get attacked by several intelligent beasts, we're nowhere near the bottom of this particular rabbit hole....

(Reading to the end of the chapter: yeap. I believe this is what you call 'pretty fucked up'.)

I'd be interested in hearing about these incongruities to see if they were the ones I intended.

Compared to this version, this is more clear right off the bat about the fact of the Sorcerer-priests doing their experimentation on animals for combat. The previous version had a very eerie feel with Ranma and just one priest trapped inside the mountain, but the hints there were, in retrospect, probably a bit too oblique and obvious at the same time. (It's difficult to describe... but I suppose at some point the reader starts to guess at what's going on and is tired of the author pretending like it's still very obscure? The old version was just barely edging towards that, I suppose.) This new version seems like a much better tradeoff. The dynamic between Wuya and Henna was also interesting to witness, being told in pantomime as it was; it's interesting how that forces a writer to put in details you otherwise don't get in a conversation. Ranma getting dragged in as a spy is another great complication.

So, this part of the fic seems to be going according to plan.

Per my other comments, yeah, I feel this version is a lot more "with it" as far as pushing the story forward in a meaningful way.  Ranma escapes at last?  Check (at least so far as he only has to stop the channelers to get true freedom).  We see a little more about what Sindoor and the Sorcerers are trying to do?  Check.

The other one did dance around it quite a bit as a purposeful (but misguided) bit of misdirection.  Henna was supposed to come off as non-hostile and trustworthy, only to reveal herself as pretty insane and more dangerous in her intentions than Wuya ever would be.  A lot of that version's story was structured around settting up Henna as a less dangerous (and perhaps more trustworthy) adversary.  Pitting Ranma against the hostile world with Henna as a temporary ally was part of that.  The other thing was that that version was meant to probe Ranma's sense of helplessness.  The overrun mountain and the sense of isolation definitely did that, but I realized with the additional baggage of needing to explain what happened with Ranma and Akane in the past, it wasn't the right thing to be talking about.

So we have this version instead.  And it is good to see Wuya at odds with Henna a bit.  While I felt a little lost at times trying to find a good message for this version (settling, ultimately, on the ideas of pride and dignity and making choices to preserve them and the costs incurred to do so), I think it's something that better reflects on Ranma's past interactions with Akane and that probes at an aspect of their relationship (and part of how it broke down).

At least, I hope that's all how it works out...

Now, on to the scene with Akane. This part of the fic gets just a short treatment in this chapter.... This version seems to acknowledge the fact that, by this point, Ranma and Akane's usual dynamic amounts to a stalemate; so, in the very first scene, Ranma tries some drastic honesty, so that things will either develop, or collapse, I suppose. That makes sense to me as a risk he'd eventually take. And, in terms of how it goes down, it already starts to make sense that Ranma would grasp at an excuse to temporarily put some distance between himself and Akane, for a chance to think things over or perhaps gather resolve. So, this seems a good start on a way to get the story the place it needs to go without overthinking things.

Ranma also has his realization at the end of the chapter as Kumkum is killed, so now we're effectively filling in the middle of this arc from both ends. That's not a bad structure to go with.

Yeah...I think this is not really going to be resolved and put to bed until the final scene in that Ranma/Akane flashback storyline comes to fruition next chapter.  It's hard for me to feel confident about this aspect of the story until that's put to bed.

I'm not really sure I understand the "filling in the middle from both ends" part of your comment, but it sounds like a good thing.

Overall, though, it seems like this version is more promising than the last one, and I'm glad to get that monkey off my back then.  Not that there are plans for chapter 7 any time soon, but it'll be good to have this finished up.

[Arakawa]

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It probably doesn't work with Wuya's perspective; hitting people with a toddler's potty is something Mousse has done before, so this was intended as a reference to that.

Ah. It sounded strangely like one of those special artefacts the Ranma canon abounds in, which is why I was wondering if it had any special properties that it would make sense for Mousse to use it in combat....

Aside from that point of confusion, the use of a potty seems fine to me :-)

Yeah, I may try to dial it back a tad.  I got a funny comment about chapter 1 about Ranma cutting his knuckles ("why should a few punches cut his knuckles if he can get buried under 10 tons of rock and come out just a little pained?" or something like that).  I think it appeals to me to see that fighting does damage to people physically and the pain gives them an opportunity to reflect on what they've done, but there is such a thing as too much detail here, for sure.

Conveying an impression of brutality without relying on gore is an art in itself, I think. Some of your later scenes with the monsters are nearer the mark -- e.g. what happens to Henna's leopard form is at once within the limit of what you'd expect from a 'grittier' version of the Ranma canon, but also shocking in the way I think you were going for. Blood spraying from noses, though.... eeenh. That somehow actually detracts from being able to take it seriously.

Random example that pops to mind of when gore does not equal grit: I remember a French comedy Le Magnifique about a popular author at a typewriter trying to write his latest trashy spy novel (pretty obviously poking fun at the James Bond novels), while various acquaintances and utility repairmen pop into the room distract him in Kafkaesque ways -- so he casts the repairmen as villains in his novel, taking petty imaginary revenge against them in ludicrously over-the-top scenes of violence. The violence had pretty much that quality -- tremendous amounts of Monty Python blood that stops being gory and crosses back over into just plain silly.

As far as Ranma swearing... I dunno.  I got the impression he swears more (or says things equivalent to swearing) more than what some translations might indicate.  Will think on this point too, though.

Translating swearing between languages is tricky, because it works wildly differently in different languages. Some languages have swearwords that are riddled with salacious associations to disgusting or taboo topics -- English is like that to some extent. Other languages have swearwords that are considered equally strong, but are actually surprisingly 'clean'. Some Russians shout "horseradish!" where an English speaker would say "bullshit!" or "what the fuck?" -- obviously nowhere near as "dirty", but it's actually similarly "strong" and would not be used lightly. Russian teenagers also shout "pancake!" for some reason, though that's supposedly a mangled version of a much worse word. (For full disclosure, Russian has a second tier of swearing which is actually dirtier than English.)

I get the impression that Japanese also has a lot of 'clean' swearing: e.g. calling someone "kisama" has about as much punch as "m...f...", if not more, (you know what I mean), but none of the dirty associations, so that level of banter can actually be printed in a shonen manga. Whether that means you should actually translate those kinds of words into equivalently strong swearing, with the added dirty associations... is certainly a question, I guess.

Wow, uh... I'm really getting into unusual topics here >_>

The other one did dance around it quite a bit as a purposeful (but misguided) bit of misdirection.  Henna was supposed to come off as non-hostile and trustworthy, only to reveal herself as pretty insane and more dangerous in her intentions than Wuya ever would be.

Yeah, she was just too creepy and eerie for that to work. The random unexplained appearance of the male form did not help any.

While I felt a little lost at times trying to find a good message for this version (settling, ultimately, on the ideas of pride and dignity and making choices to preserve them and the costs incurred to do so), I think it's something that better reflects on Ranma's past interactions with Akane and that probes at an aspect of their relationship (and part of how it broke down).

Yeah; the message seems all right. I don't think it's something that you need to go to extreme efforts to instill a message, but the realization that Ranma should care about whether he does right or wrong, not what Akane thinks of him, seems essential to it.

Overall, though, it seems like this version is more promising than the last one, and I'm glad to get that monkey off my back then.  Not that there are plans for chapter 7 any time soon, but it'll be good to have this finished up.

I guess there's a bit of burnout from being sent through so many revisions? I feel kind of bad about the number of times I sent you to rewrite things, but at least I can say I've been honest about the things that struck me as good and bad....

(I have a bit of the same feeling myself about my own fic right now, but looking at where I started with the prologue to where I've ended up -- from something incoherent to a scene that I feel pretty satisfied with -- I hope the rest of the story can go through a similar process.)

In the end, I think the problems you were facing are a lot more straightforward to solve than in my case.

Requested study of incongruities will follow somewhat later :-P