Ranma ½ Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
I have just realises that previous chapters might not be readable thanks to weird formatting issues with the changes to the forum software. 

And as such, you can read chapter 1-5 with relative ease here.
 

balthanon

Well-Known Member
Lord Raa said:
I have just realises that previous chapters might not be readable thanks to weird formatting issues with the changes to the forum software. 

And as such, you can read chapter 1-5 with relative ease here.
Thanks-- I have actually put off reading a couple of your older works that I spotted here because of those formatting errors.  Didn't think to go look on Fanfiction.net until just now for some reason.  I put a review for the first five chapters there, but I'll repeat it here as well:

Enjoyed this quite a bit overall.  It changes things up versus the canon, which is almost always a positive and it's flowing fairly well.

Nabiki's actions feel a bit forced along with the Kasumi the super-villain line, but I think it's more that they could benefit from some backstory than anything else.  A chance encounter on a camping trip for Nabiki or something (also likely resulting in a rabid dislike of camping) and maybe Ranma and Shampoo being forced by Inspector Genma into a "safer past time" that ended up with them seeing a Bond movie or even something Chinese or Japanese instead.  Another alternative would be that being the one date they've been on prior to this-- basically I just can't quite see the two of them being independently familiar with the foreign films due to their background.  It kind of comes out of nowhere on that chapter.


Could you post a link to the beginning of Chapter 6 here as well?  Not sure how far back that is located in the thread.  (Never mind, looks like it's only a bit further up on this page.)
 

balthanon

Well-Known Member
Lord Raa said:
Elsewhere in Furinkan, Ranma was trying to stay awake during his class. He could feel his head dropping down as his eyes closed.

Shampoo watched this with amusement.

It wasn’t often she got to see Ranma in such an unguarded state. Sure, she’d seen him in various states of undress during their trip from China, but those times had always been after a training. Today felt different.
'been after training'

The other thing you might want to address here is that you have two perspectives with both Ranma's thoughts/feelings and Shampoo's. It might feel a little tighter if you stuck with just Shampoo. It kind of feels like you're head hopping, rather than in strictly third person omniscient too, which I noticed a bit in chapters 1-5 as well. (This is where I got the head hopping term, it seems like a good read on the pros and cons of omniscient vs limited: http://www.scribophile.com/academy/using-third-person-omniscient-pov)

Lord Raa said:
Ranma finally twigged who it was standing before him. “Ryoga Hibiki!”

“Yes. And I'm here to finish the duel you ran out from!” the fanged boy declared.

...

“You know I can't find places easily!”
The twigged line here is a little awkward. That might just be because it's more a British verb than American though, so I don't see it used often.

Ryoga also doesn't usually admit to his navigational challenges quite that easily.

Lord Raa said:
Now, if you folks have any ideas for what to do with Ryoga, I'm open to suggestions. I don't want to go with canon Ryoga, but I'm unsure what to with him at the moment.

Should I give him a curse? If so, what should it be?

At the moment, Ryoga (in this story at least) isn't an irredeemable helmet. I feel he should have some kind of success in this iteration. Perhaps pair him up with Akane?  Maybe Nabiki falls for him?
It might be a fun change of pace to have Ryoga completely without a curse. You mentioned that he had been wandering the village earlier, so you could have him end up with an Amazon wife... just not the bubbly, cute variety. Have him end up with the girl that Shampoo was challenging for the championship, since it would make sense that if Shampoo got first dibs on Ranma then she would get the first shot at Ryoga.

You could actually even make Ryoga into even more of a cad by having it turn out that the huge girl is actually really sweet, shy due to her looks, etc... Maybe a good friend of Shampoo's, so she's really upset when Ryoga starts complaining about what Ranma has done to him.
 

AzaggThoth

Well-Known Member
I don't know if an uncursed Ryoga or one with a silly curse he couldn't blame on Ranma would be funnier...
 

balthanon

Well-Known Member
AzaggThoth said:
I don't know if an uncursed Ryoga or one with a silly curse he the readers couldn't blame on Ranma would be funnier...
Ryoga could blame the moon falling out of the sky on Ranma.  A curse that Ranma didn't directly cause by knocking him in isn't going to stop him. If it happened anytime after he left to find Ranma, it's Ranma's fault.  ;)
 

Lord Raa

Exporter of Juice Tins
Slight revisions and additional content for this last scene.

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Soon it was lunch time and Ranma sat with Shampoo under a tree. He was attempting to relax while she was throwing some not so subtle warnings for the girls to keep away from Ranma with her body language.

It was going well until a section of the wall exploded.

Ranma leapt to his feet and scanned the dust cloud for threats.

“Ranma! I've found you at last!” a male voice declared.

“And you are?” Ranma replied, his eyes narrowing.

“Don't tell me you've forgotten me, Ranma!” the figure said as he strode into view.

“You!” Shampoo said recognising the figure as he approached them. “I know you! You walked into the women's changing area at the tournament.”

“That was an accident!”

“Accidents happen, but you do look a bit familiar...” the part-time bear trailed off as he tried to remember who it was that he was speaking to.

The young man shook his head. “Don't strain your brain, Ranma...”

Ranma finally realised who it was standing before him. “Ryoga Hibiki!”

“Yes. And I'm here to finish the duel you ran out from!” the fanged boy declared.

Shampoo looked aghast. In the time she'd known Ranma, he'd never backed down or shied away from a challenge.

His father, well, that was another matter.

“Ranma?” she asked hesitantly.

“Hey, I waited three days for you!”

“And when I got there on the fourth day, you'd gone!” Ryoga snarled angrily.

“It was behind your house,” Ranma protested. “How long was I supposed to wait?”

“You know about my problem!” the wanderer hissed angrily.

Shampoo looked a little confused at first, but was quickly getting an idea about why there had been incidents back at the village and what had caused this Ryoga to go on some kind of epic quest for revenge.

“Never mind that, Ryoga, three years late isn't the worst for a revenge attempt.”

“Attempt?” the lost boy glared at his nemesis. “I'll end you now!”

“No, not now,” Ranma said calmly, stopping Ryoga in his tracks.

“What do you mean not now!?!”

“Well, lunch time is nearly over and if I get detention, I might not be able to fulfil a promise I made,” the pigtailed martial artist explained. “We'll fight after school at the Tendo Dojo.”

Shampoo turned to glare at Ryoga as she realised what Ranma was referring to. “If you stop Ranma from taking me on our date, I'll break you in half myself.”

Ryoga was taken aback by the aggression the Amazon was exuding. “I... But how will I get to the Tendo Dojo in time?”

“Follow us, we'll get you there. You will have to sit through some boring lessons, though. But that's a small price to pay to quench your thirst for vengeance.”

Shampoo chuckled, but tried to make it clear that it was Ranma she was laughing at and not his directionally challenged friend.


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