Relatively Absent

When Sailor Pluto kills herself with a timestop at Mugen Gakuen, the Gate of Time decides it wants a different guardian, one who will not impose her own agenda on the Gate's ancient mission and on the course of the future. The only candidate it can find, though, is a critically-injured Ranma, locked in female form and buried deep under a landslide in the aftermath of a failed confrontation with Prince Herb over the Chisuiton.

An incredibly well-written fic that was already building up to epic length when its author renounced fan fiction entirely and tried (with surprising success) to purge it from the Web.

2002-June 2009

http://web.archive.org/web/20121014103314/http://www.markshu.com/blog/

Original characters, artwork, and the story itself are copyright © 2002 by Mark Shurtleff; these are owned by myself and I reserve all rights to their use and distribution.


 * A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Edges sideway into this trope.  The magical A.I.s in the Ginzuishou, the Gate of Time and the Silence Glaive have their own purposes and priorities that didn't align with those of their Silver Millennium owners, which is why they were (mostly) driven into a state of "hibernation".  Once they awaken again, the actions they take to pursue those imperatives makes them appear to be going rogue.


 * Alternate Universe: One key divergence is that Ranma does not escape the battle with Herb at Mount Horai unscathed, but instead was buried alive in the avalanche it caused.


 * Ancient Artifact: The Gate describes itself as "constructed so long ago that not even I have a recollection of my own creation."
 * The Crystal and the Glaive appear to be its contemporaries; it's all but stated outright that they long predate the Silver Millennium and were "repurposed" by/for Queen Serenity and her senshi.


 * Animal Eye Spy: Probably the closest trope to the way the Gate can only perceive things beyond its immediate physical location through its Guardian's senses.


 * Arbitrary Skepticism: Averted (as is common) for Ranma, who has seen so many weird things just in the last few years of her life that she has absolutely no problems accepting the mysterious voice in her head that claims it's feeding her ki to keep her alive.
 * Also averted in the way Aiko Yamada does not dismiss Ranma's story about the Gate and her new guardianship, but rather accepts the story until she receives enough proof to uncondtionally verify it. (Even if she does draw a wrong but reasonable conclusion about what the Gate is.)


 * Arranged Marriage: The Emperor arranges a marriage between female!Ranma and her cousin Midori (wearing a male form thanks to instant Jusenkyo powder) on very short notice, as a ploy to keep the Yamada ninja clan active as ninja.  Not the purest example of the trope, as both Ranma and Midori are give the opportunity to object and back out -- but the dire political and social consequences of doing so are impressed upon both of them, and neither feels they can decline honorably.


 * Bond Creatures: This is perhaps the closest trope to the relationship between Ranma and the Gate, although which one counts as the human partner and which is the bond creature is a bit hard to determine.


 * Big Brother Is Watching: The Americans have a spy satellite watching the Yamada compound specifically to track Ranma.  Unfortunately for them, he's learned to teleport by then.


 * Break the Haughty: This happens to Nodoka in the years after she is disowned, until she reaches a point during Ranma and Genma's training trip where she is willing to be a High-Class Call Girl to feed herself.


 * Buried Alive: Ranma's state at the start of the story.  It takes the entire first chapter (and the Gate's help) for her to dig her way out.


 * The Clan: The Yamada.  Several other ninja clans are mentioned, but none appeared "on-screen" before the story was abandoned.


 * Cool Old Lady: Aiko Yamada, when she isn't wearing her "clan matriarch" hat -- and sometimes even when she is.


 * Cursed with Awesome: The Gate, from its own perspective.  It has vast cosmic power, but almost no ability to use it on its own volition.


 * De-Power: Many of Sailor Pluto's trademark abilities come not from her Senshi empowerment, but from being the guardian of the Gate of Time.  They are stripped from her after her temporary death at Mugen Gakuen, and when Ranma accepts the Gate's guardianship they're permanently denied her.  Their loss is both inconvenient and personally humiliating -- and turns Crystal Tokyo from a guaranteed future to ... something far less so.


 * Dead Fic: After a prologue and eleven chapters written over six years, the story was abruptly abandoned by author Shurtleff (along with all his other fan writing).


 * Death by Fanfic: Herb, Mint, Lime and Ryoga all died in the collapse of Mount Horai.  At least, Mousse and the Yamada clan believe -- with good evidence -- that this is the case.  (And none of them reappear in the extant material.)


 * Disney Death: Twice In-Universe:  First, the misapprehension that Ranma died at Mt. Horai, which is corrected by chapter 3.  Also, Aiko believes that her youngest granddaughter -- who by all appearances is Hotaru "Sailor Saturn" Tomoe -- died in an explosion with her father.  She is, of course, not dead, but is currently in infant form after the events of Mugen Gakuen.


 * The Ditz: There's a little bit of this worked into Tsuya's personality.


 * Dramatically Missing the Point: Nodoka.  Every time she learns more about Ranma, she draws exactly the wrong conclusion about what Ranma wants or needs.  For example, upon learning that Ranma is stuck in girl form, she immediately assumes it's permanent (despite being told otherwise) and Ranma consequently has to live as a woman in all ways.  Nodoka is helped in this by her tendency to only listen long enough to anything to jump to a conclusion about it.


 * Emotion Eater/The Empath: The Gate's relationship with its guardian includes a certain amount of this, although not in a harmful or malicious way.  It has no emotions of its own, but along with other sensory input it enjoys from its symbiosis with a guardian, it can feel their emotions.  However, it receives only stimulation, not sustenance, from them; it also knows enough to recognize when its guardian might be reaching dangerous emotional extremes, and will take steps to help them stabilize themselves.


 * Faking the Dead: Done accidentally on Ranma's behalf by Aiko before she learns that Ranma has survived, when she sends a video documenting Ranma's curse -- and ending with footage of her apparent death -- to Nodoka, to indulge Harukichi's desire for a little vengeance.  Nodoka then "shares" the video with the Tendos after marking Ranma and Ranko as dead in the Saotome family register.


 * Four-Temperament Ensemble: The cousins, but only in the broadest strokes:  Harukichi (Phlegmatic), Midori (Choleric), Tsuya (Sanguine), Kioko (Melancholic).


 * Genki Girl: Tsuya.


 * Gold Digger: Genma, who had ulterior motives for marrying (so he thought) into the Yamada clan.  Nodoka was disowned in part to keep him from access to the Yamada wealth and connections.


 * Gratuitous Japanese: Fortunately not to excess, but the occasional "gomen" and "hai" slip in here and there.


 * Happily Adopted: Ranma's cousins, into the Yamada clan.


 * Healing Factor: Ranma's canonical healing speed (a consequence of the manga/anime's slapstick violence) is turned into an actual ki skill for enhanced healing, which then gets supercharged by the Gate's endless supply of pure ki.


 * High-Class Call Girl: What Nodoka was almost reduced to doing to support herself, before a Man in Black offered her a contract to remove an "unwanted individual".


 * Hollywood Healing: What Ranma's ki mastery gives her.  The avalanche utterly shattered one forearm, and she insists certain it'll be fine in two weeks, to the utter bafflement of her cousins.  (It actually gets better much faster, thanks to her connection with the Gate.)


 * I Have No Son: Subverted.  While Aiko is forced to disown Nodoka for marrying Genma in order to protect the clan, it is without rancor, she hopes for a reunion someday, and she sets up a monthly stipend so that Nodoka is taken care of, regardless.  (Unfortunately, the stipend is embezzled by a Yamada accountant whom Aiko trusted, leaving Nodoka penniless and believing that this trope is the case and that she is The Unfavourite.)


 * I Never Told You My Name: Ranma immediately realizes the cousins know who she is because Midori addresses her by name shortly after Ranma wakes from her chapter 2 Power Strain Blackout.


 * In Medias Res: The story starts with the final moments of Ranma's battle with Herb on Mount Horai.


 * Insistent Terminology: The narration repeatedly calls Ranma (in girl form) a "neo-girl", which literally means "new girl", as though it was a synonym for "part-time" or "transformed girl".


 * Kid Samurai: Midori, who alone of the four cousins favors direct combat and as such is training in the Yamada sword styles.


 * Kids Are Cruel: Before she finds out "Ranko" and Ranma are one and the same, she blames "Ranko"'s loneliness, "tomboyishness" and desperate desire to please her on presumed mistreatment by her peers, and cites this trope by name.


 * Loophole Abuse: The Gate of Time is unable to disobey its guardian, who has for many thousands of years been Sailor Pluto.  Nor can it choose a different guardian -- unless its current guardian is dead and there is no third party present to select impose a candidate, which is the case with Pluto in the aftermath of Mugen Gakuen.  The Gate takes advantage of its brief period of opportunity before Pluto is automatically resurrected to select and bond with a new guardian of its choice.


 * Magitek: The Gate (and perhaps the Crystal and the Glaive, as well) appears to be some manner of magitek device, and it views magical effects in terms more scientific than mystical -- such as when it interprets the web of curses and other magic on Ranma as mutually reinforcing and interfering fields of energy.


 * Masquerade: Despite what they might think, the Sailor Senshi are far from the only paranormals active in the world.  Leaving aside all the magic, ghosts, monsters and other supernatural elements present due to the crossover with Ranma ½, the Emperor's security staff alone has an entire troop of psionically-active agents.


 * The Men in Black: Various government agents of different kinds who appear in the story make appearance.


 * Miniature Senior Citizens: Aiko Yamada.  Although she's not as exaggeratedly short as Cologne, she's still petite enough that she has to look up into the faces of three of her four teenaged granddaughters -- all of whom are of a size with Ranma's female form.


 * Ninja: Nodoka was born into the Yamada, one of the last surviving ninja clans in modern Japan.  Ranma's four female cousins are also being trained as kunoichi.


 * Never Mess with Granny: Aiko Yamada, as the matriarch of a ninja clan, is no less skilled than any of her descendants still pursing the art, is very politically savvy, and has the ear of the emperor.


 * Power Strain Blackout: Ranma passes out from overexertion shortly after tunnelling her way out from under the avalanche at the end of chapter 2.


 * Professional Killer: One of the ways Nodoka makes ends meet over the years is by taking the occasional assassination contract for the government, which also allows her to keep her kunoichi skills sharp. It is strongly implied that these contracts are a kind of charity from someone in the government aware of her situation and wishing to give her an honorable means of maintaining herself.  Given the interest the Emperor has in maintaining the Yamada as a living ninja clan, it may well have been at his orders.


 * Psychic Link: One exists between Ranma and the Gate; establishing this was the first step in the bonding process, and required the injured, semi-conscious Ranma's agreement in chapter one.


 * Signed Language: The Yamada clan ninja.  We see them using it from the very first moments of the story, when Midori gives a new assignment to Harukichi with hand signals.  And there's at least one scene where Matriarch Aiko has one conversation with one of her granddaughters on a verbal level, and a completely different one in the clan sign language.  Further, the Yamada sign language is not limited to hand signals -- it incorporates full-body communication, using everything from posture to eyebrow twitches to communicate as clearly as speech.


 * Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Harukichi, who is described as "striking", even in comparison to the other cousins, none of whom are anything less than beautiful.


 * The Stoic/The Spock: The Gate, by its very nature, is calm, dispassionate, logical but also aware of the cost of using its power.  It is almost computer-like in its lack of emotion, which makes the one time it expresses anything close to anger such a surprise to Ranma.


 * Understatement: The Gate's warning to Ranma that the bonding process might be "uncomfortable".


 * The Unfavourite: Nodoka believes that she is this, because she was disowned by her mother for marrying Genma.  She isn't by any measure, but her mother was forced to do so to protect the clan from him.  This is reinforced by the embezzlement of a monthly stipend set up for her, leading her to believe she had been completely abandoned by the clan.


 * What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Sailor Pluto long ago stopped communicating with the intelligence within the Gate of Time, considering it nothing more than an inanimate object.  When Ranma explains to her that the Gate doesn't want her as a Guardian any more, Pluto refuses to believe it at first.  It's only when it's obvious that the Gate is prompting Ranma with the instructions on how to finish the Guardian bonding process -- something that Pluto is the only person left alive who knows -- that she even considers the possibility.
 * On the other hand, Sailor Moon has no problem accepting that the Ginzuishou has its own controlling intelligence once it starts talking to her and anyone else who'll listen.


 * Not Listening to Me, Are You?: Ranma is so sure upon meeting them that the cousins are new fiancees that while ranting about what Genma might have sold her off for this time, she misses the first few attempts Midori makes to tell her they're family.  Midori finally has to resort to yelling at her to get Ranma to listen.

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Trivia page


 * Creator Backlash: Shurtleff abruptly abandoned writing fanfiction in 2009, and enacted a complete purge of Relatively Absent and all his other works from the Net -- even from the Wayback Machine.  In one of the last entries on his blog he seemed to regard it as an Old Shame that he no longer wanted associated with his name after shifting his focus to other projects, nor did he want anyone continuing this or his other incomplete stories.


 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: This story is a lost classic—if you can find it (usually as an archive maintained off-line by a fan), consider yourself incredibly lucky.


 * What Could Have Been: Well, the entire story, basically.  But more specifically...
 * There was at one time among the artwork commissioned for the story a piece depicting Hotaru Tomoe dressed in the same style of guardian as Ranma in her guise as "Guardian Khronos".