I promise, I will restrain from garroting myself until after I release
the final draft of it, if only for the one or two people
actually liked it.
Hey, some people would kill to get this much C & C.
I wasn't trying to create a comedy or a drama, not explicitly. I just
had an idea for a story, and let the characters as I
perceived them run
with it. (Some who use this method say the characters themselves tell
them the story, and they are but diarists for the fictional ones. It
certainly does feel that way...) Sometimes this works, sometimes not.
From the C&C, this one was more towards the "not" end, though
it can be salvaged. But I need to decide, comedy or drama. Maybe I'll
go for the easiest one; maybe I'll try to produce two versions - one for
each take.
I had another thought, one which might let you get by with little
actual rewriting, but might be hard to carry off: make a soap-opera
parody out of it: frequent pauses for dramatic organ music bracketing
major announcements such as Akane's "I'm infertile". You come up with
a series of hilariously implausible tear-jerkers, and let the characters
be themselves.
Dramatic organ music. Akane admitted, crying, "I'm infertile!
I can't bear Ranma's children!" Ukyou looked shocked.
Dramatic organ music. Ukyou admitted, crying, "I can never
marry Ranma; I'm legally a man!" Akane looked shocked.
Dramatic organ music. Shampoo admitted, crying, "Shampoo cannot
be mother, either; Shampoo really born as boy and surgically
altered at birth!"
Dramatic organ music. Kasumi shouted, teary-eyed, "How can you
do this to me, Akane? I already operated on Nabiki!"
Dramatic organ music. Nabiki snidely replied, "That'll be
???? yen to have me take nine months off to bear Ranma's child."
Akane gasped in dismay.
Dramatic organ music. Ranma said nothing, being three months
dead.
Generally, though, it's hard to mix comedy and drama effectively
because the effects conflict.
[insert standard use-of-Ranmaverse disclaimers]
Ditto. Why bother if you're not going to show Takahashi
respect here?
I have a longer, more formal version that I use for finished works.
<clip new disclaimer>
Will this suffice?
That's actually considerably more than I use myself. I personally
don't care what you say about Viz or Shogakuken; I just like
to see Takahashi appreciated, that's all. (I admit to shortcuts
in spamfics, though, so maybe I shouldn't have said anything.)
Speaking as someone who has taken almost this exact path myself, in
my fics, I don't think you're giving Akane enough reluctance here.
I'd think about clueing the reader in on the infertility up here
somewhere, but even then, agreeing to this would be agony for Akane.
Perhaps some introspection, then? The wedding seems like a good point
to start the fic at, but Akane would have been thinking about this for
some time. Maybe she confronts her last bit of doubt just
before making the offer to Ukyo?
My first thought is that you keep what you have, just also show us
Akane's thoughts as she makes the offer.
Part of the point of the story is that it is Akane's idea, for reasons
(mainly the infertility) she would rather not let people know.
It's the whole idea that Akane would solve the problem of her own
infertility in this way that people have trouble with. Traditionally,
the acquisition of mistresses is a badge of affluence; and official
wives often agreed bacause they too saw it as such. Infertility,
a different problem, can be solved by a number of ways, many covered
in other fanfics: surrogate motherhood, Instant Spring of Drowned Man,
Nabiki as mistress. None of these pose the potential problems to
Akane that her chosen solution does (Akane should be paranoid that if
Ukyou has a child by Ranma and she herself does not, Ranma will
divorce Akane and marry Ukyou. This is both good reproductive logic,
and the actual practice of numerous human societies. The vast
majority of societies have permitted infertility as a cause of
divorce, even if no other causes are permitted.)
There are also a number of Ukyou fans who wouldn't buy her immediate
agreement to such an arrangement.
Objection on the speed, or objection on her agreeing without
significant persuasion other than time to think it over?
Either, both, or at all. (I don't know that this should stop you;
I just meant it more as a warning that you might hear from such.)
"Yeah, right. A 'friend' who would cut out her heart and
leave it on
your doorstep if she thought it would please you. A 'friend'
who loves
you just as much as I do. A 'friend' whom you glomped AT OUR OWN
WEDDING!"
In canon, Ukyou is not in the habit of glomping Ranma the way
Shampoo is. And Akane isn't as blind as you make her out to
be in mistaking such events. While canon gives little clue
as to Akane's opinion on how much Ukyou loves Ranma, Akane saying
this of Ukyou doesn't ring true to me.
Eh? Akane doesn't say Ukyo glomped Ranma heer. She says
Ranma glomped Ukyo. (Even a gentle hug can be interpreted as a "glomp".)
But it's unlike Ranma to give Ukyou that hug.
I was interpreting Akane's statement as the misunderstanding
that many fanfic writers attribute to Akane vis-a-vis Shampoo's
glomps on Ranma. If that's not what you meant, you might want to
think about making that a bit clearer.
"Welcome. Ukyo awaits upstairs." Konatsu seemed to, as usual,
materialize out of thin air.
What's Konatsu's attitude towards all this, anyway? Agreeing
to stand aside I can see, but what are his own desires?
For Ukyo to be happy. He devotes his life to Ukyo; if that means
helping her find happiness in the arms of someone else, so be it, so
long as he can still help.
You don't need to tell _me_; you want to decide if you need to
make it clearer in the story, given that readers might be curious.
"I'm infertile."
This is an abrupt change of tone. The only way to make
this funny is to turn this into very black humor, which you're
not (successfully) doing. Rather, this is where a comedy turns
into a melodrama.
What exactly is "black humor"? Just humor about depressing
situations?
'Black' humor (which not everyone finds funny) is indeed humor
about situations which would, happening to you, be depressing.
For instance, the Chevy Chase movie I mentioned, 'Vacation', in
which the grandmother's death is not allowed to interfere with
the family's vacation. Instead, her corpse is strapped to its
rocking chair, fastened to the top of the car, and driven to
California. Very sick, but hilarious.
"You mean, you wanted me to have his child?"
Why would Akane pick Ukyou for this role? Why not Kasumi or Nabiki?
Besides the fact that the child will inherit the Dojo, there's just
plain human nature: Nabiki's child by Ranma has a lot of genes
in common with Akane (and Akane would consider that she need not
worry about losing Ranma to Nabiki), whereas Ukyou's does not.
Relying on her sisters is one thing. Using her sisters as
tools towards her own ends is something else. Nabiki wouldn't bat
an eye at doing this; Kasumi wouldn't think of giving Ranma a
mistress to begin with. While Nabiki herself would not directly
steal Ranma from Akane, she might share Ranma further. Kasumi
might be a possible alternate, if they had shown the type of love
that Ukyo had for Ranma.
The problem is that Nabiki is so obvious for this role, from
Akane's perspective, as well as Soun's, Kasumi's, and Nodoka's.
The heir to the Dojo, after Ranma, is still a Tendo; Nabiki is far
less likely than Ukyou to alienate Ranma's affections from Akane
(and even if she were to, the Tendo-Saotome union is intact);
the child can be legally Akane's, as Nabiki probably stays unmarried;
Akane is more motivated to raise the child, as it's her own
nephew.
Nice idea. Here's another one; does it sound as plausible?
Soun agrees to train young Akane in basic martial arts, but gets
dissapointed in her "girlish" lack of strength. Akane goes to great
measures to please her father (having not yet grown disillusioned of
him), but nothing she does is good enough. Eventually, she
hears about
certain chemical methods that might help further, and puts pressure on
Nabiki to obtain them for her. Nabiki does so, though Akane now feels
guilty about making her fear for her life for a bit.
Probably works for Akane and Nabiki, but Soun would need some
clarification, IMHO. He certainly would do nothing he thought might
motivate Akane to engage in substance abuse.
- If you really want comedy, just refer to an extension of the
Super-Soba and dou-gi principle: "Remember Happosai's Super
Soba? Well, the following New Year's Happosai made up some of
this 'Hyper Soba', see, and it had this unfortunate
side-effect..."
How about an attempt at Happosai repellant that Cologne tried
to whip up as a favor?
You don't need Cologne for this. "Woman repellent" is canon as
being available in China; just have Akane get the address of
"Jusenkyo mail-order products" from Shampoo and order "Old
Lecherous Man repellent." Unfortunately, all Jusenkyo products
have problems...
Soun moving out is implausible, unless you're deliberately being
so. At times this fic borders on that kind of humor, but you
don't consistently stick to it.
No matter which way I go, I need to add in a scene of Akane
kicking Soun out when Ukyo moves in.
It's a problem: you want Soun out, but how? The only plausible
solution to removing Soun I can recall reading is having him move in
with Hinako. Daughter and title-holder kicking out her dad
just isn't done in Japan.
There are a number of implausibilities here. If deliberate, okay;
but you have to stick to that tone once adopted. Otherwise, all of
this needs work. Why even keep Shampoo around? You don't
really use her later on. Given that she IS around, why is she
content to stay out of this arrangement?
Now that Shampoo is free of her past, she is free to change,
and to find
other interests besides Ranma. You're right, I should have used her a
bit more.
I'd suggest you either use her more or don't mention her at all.
The latter allows you to avoid figuring out these "other interests"
and how to make them distract Shampoo quickly.
Akane and Ukyo enjoyed sharing the responsibility of
raising his son.
"Enjoyed sharing"?
What it sounds like. They shared the responsibility, and
enjoyed doing so. You mean verb usage like this isn't common?
No, that's not what I meant. I'm just having a bit of a
problem picturing it as described. Raising a child can be
_very_ trying; sharing the burden helps a lot, but Akane's
attitude, i.e. exactly why and how she is _enjoying_
it, needs work (IMO). No conflicts over exactly how stern
to be? No temptation on Akane's part to play "good parent"
to Ukyou's "bad parent"?
Here you pose the question, but don't answer it, about the legal
status of the son. Is he legally illegitimate, with concomittant
social disadvantages in Japan? Or is he, on paper, Akane's child?
For a tragedy, this part _must_ be plausible; for certain kinds
of comedy it need not be.
He's Ukyo's and Ranma's, through and through. Either way I
go, I could probably play up the disadvantages.
This raises the problem of why Ukyou doesn't use the boy's
legitimacy to argue that Ranma should divorce Akane and marry
her. Males succumb to temptations like this all the time, all
over the world.
"Let the record show that Ranma Saotome died of natural causes,
specifically heart failure. The motion by Akane Saotome
to convict Akane Saotome of murder is hereby dismissed."
Amusing, but implausible. Akane is Japanese; suicide is _MUCH_
more acceptable there than here, and not done in this way.
Hmm...maybe. Perhaps Akane should agonize over whether to
suicide for a couple weeks, just long enough for the pregancy
to become detectable and give her a reason to live.
I'm not sure I buy agonizing over it. Alternatives: Akane
converted to Christianity because of her infertility; or
Akane and Ukyou had fallen out of love with Ranma anyway,
due to his frequent prolonged absences.
"One last piece of Ranma survives."
Suddenly, Akane no longer felt like celebrating.
Huh? Why not?
Reminded of Ranma.
You might want to make that a bit clearer.
And Tofu is still OOC: "bungled it again"?
The verbage, maybe, but I can definitely see him getting that
angry over this.
Perhaps; it was really the phrasing I meant.
Maybe I missed something, but did we ever get told why Ukyou stopped
with one child?
Some couples decide to have one kid; others, many. This needs any
explanation?
Not really. The echo scene kind of raises the question, though,
if more than a couple of years has passed. Deciding on just one
child at Ukyou's age (still early twenties) when she knows she's
carrying for Akane as well as herself just seems counter-intuitive.
The echo of the earlier scene is amusing.
I thought I was pushing it a bit...
Black humor requires a bit more here: "'...Akane?' Ukyou put
two fingers to Akane's neck, then pulled a sheet over her
face. 'Oh, well.' " And to be completely plausible, Akane'd
have to have made an issue about giving birth at home rather
than a hospital.
Eh? Why would she have had to have made an issue?
Because if in a hospital, there _would_ be doctors running around
trying to keep her alive (and spoiling the scene).
Given the problems people have been finding with it, "implausibility
humor" does not sound like a valid path.
"Implausibility humor" usually has to be very short to work well, as
in spamfics. Alternatively, you can end a longer work with it: in
'Animal House', the ending shows where the characters ended up 20(?)
years later; the John Belushi character is shown as a U.S. Senator.
One laughs _because_ this is so implausible, given what we know.
But once you start using this, you've shot your narrative credibility;
you can't subsequently manage _any_ other tone or effect.