Relatively Absent

Relatively Absent is a long-lost (and incomplete) Ranma ½/Sailor Moon Crossover Fic written by Mark "Togashi Gaijin" Shurtleff between 2002 and 2009, and suddenly yanked from the net with a surprising thoroughness when Shurtleff abruptly abandoned fan fiction.

When Sailor Pluto kills herself with a timestop at Mugen Gakuen, the Gate of Time Eternity 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 within 500 parsecs, 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. Bonding with her gives the Gate its new guardian, while saving Ranma's life and giving her a second chance at breaking the lock on her curse. It also wakes up the controlling intelligences of the Silence Glaive Glaive of Space and the Silver Imperium Crystal Crystal of Life -- which suggest that whatever Queen Serenity intended for their use, it wasn't their original purpose.

Sailor Pluto gets more than a little pissed off at Ranma as well.

Complicating matters beyond Magical Girl politics, Ranma's apparent death in the avalanche on Mount Horai sets in motion events involving the powerful and influential Yamada clan -- the family who disowned his mother Nodoka when she married Genma Saotome -- and the Japanese government all the way up to the Emperor. And why has the Japanese National Intelligence Directorate been watching Nerima and its martial artists? What is Project Chameleon? And why is the US Navy involved?

And unknown to the Sailor Senshi, they are far from the only people with paranormal powers in the world...

A 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, Relatively Absent was clearly still in its early, establishing chapters when it was abandoned. It's an enjoyable read, but a heartbreak to finish, because so many plot threads had been set in motion with nothing close to a resolution anywhere to be found in the extant material. Where Shurtleff was heading with them all is a mystery, with so much in play that it's impossible to guess how it all would have been tied up at the end.

While Relatively Absent is no longer hosted anywhere online, if you're lucky you can find an off-line archive maintained by a fan who is willing to share.


 * 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 "reprogrammed" and (mostly) driven into a state of "hibernation".  Once they awaken again, the actions the Gate and the Glaive take to pursue those imperatives makes them appear to be going rogue.  (The Crystal seems to be less inclined to buck her altered programming, but it's hard to be sure with the extant material.)


 * Abusive Parents: This fic implies that Genma is abusive beyond even the usual fanfic standard, hinting strongly that he is behind the "weak neural inhibiter" magic that damped down Ranma's intelligence and libido, and showing that he only cares about his wife and son to the degree that they can get him access to the Yamada money.
 * Aiko implies that before she was adopted into the clan, Harukichi's birth family was abusive.


 * Accidentally Accurate: In-Universe example:  Ranma is able to wear a sports bra because she can view it as a "jock strap" for women.  The very first sports bra was created in 1977 by sewing two jock straps together.


 * Adaptation Dye Job: Sort of. Ranma initially has black hair in her female form, matching the manga.  However, becoming the Gate's guardian and undergoing her first Transformation Sequence turns it to a red hue to match the anime version.


 * The Ageless: This is an immediate benefit of being an artifact's Guardian.


 * 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 of Life and the Glaive of Space 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. And all three share a communication network between them with protocols for sharing information in certain cirumstances, which points toward a common origin.  (The Crystal, though, considers the awakened Glaive a threat.)


 * 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 in fanfic) 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, although she does have considerable proof for its truth beforehand. (Even if she does draw a wrong but reasonable conclusion about what the Gate is.)


 * Arranged Marriage:
 * The Saotome clan had a long history of arranged marriages leading to combining different families' martial arts schools. The current ... problems ... stem from a marriage arranged between Aiko's brother Naosuke and Ranma's paternal grandmother Yasuko.
 * The Emperor of Japan arranges a marriage between 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 given 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.  (And Midori has a crush on Ranma -- to which she admits -- which makes her decision to go along with it much easier.)


 * Australia: The Gate directs Ranma to the Southesk Tablelands in Western Australia -- a remote bit of the Outback -- when she wants to try out some of her more destructive guardian powers for the first time.


 * Australian Aborigines: A local super who appears to be an Aboriginal shaman shows up to investigate the section of Outback Ranma devastates while upset.


 * Badass Bookworm: Kioko:  reading-obsessed kunoichi.


 * Bastard Bastard: Genma, who was born over a year after the death of his mother's husband.


 * 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.


 * Bi the Way: Chapter 3 makes it clear that the cousins have enjoyed some kind of sensual/sexual play together, particularly in the context of learning about hojojutsu and shibari ties and how to escape from them.


 * Big Brother Is Watching:
 * In chapter 3, we learn that the Japanese National Intelligence Directorate is very aware of Ranma and the rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew, has a group which maintains surveillance on Ranma (at least), and has some kind of project planned called "Chameleon" that will make use of her (or them) which goes active when they learn she survived Mount Horai.
 * The Americans have a spy satellite watching the Yamada compound specifically to track Ranma. Unfortunately for them, he's learned to teleport by then.


 * Big Fancy House: The Yamada compound is huge and opulent without being crassly showy.


 * Big No: Ranma's reaction in chapter 8 to learning that her mother has declared blood feud against the Tendos, after several Little Nos and before abruptly teleporting to points unknown.


 * Big "What?": From Aiko upon being informed in chapter 3 that Ranma is alive.


 * Body Language: Control of one's body language is an important part of the Yamada martial art, and leads directly to the complex and detailed communication possible with their Signed Language.  Aiko notes upon first meeting her that, in contrast, Ranma has been deliberately taught to essentially broadcast all her thoughts through her body language.


 * 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.


 * Broken Masquerade: In the final paragraphs of chapter 6, a panic-striken Luna rushes in and reports the theft of the Time Key to Usagi and the other Senshi, only to realize that Usagi's mother Ikuko is present and heard every word she said, and is apparently furious at the revelation.


 * 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.


 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * The short scene in the "Temple of Layiru" in chapter 6. Clearly Foreshadowing for something, we never got enough of the story to find out if the mysterious alert (in the form of a flaring gemstone in an intricate mosaic) was because Ranma became the Gate's guardian, because the Gate had just accidentally unleased the "spiritual contamination" that was the Neko-ken, because the Gate went into Alpha Override to deal with it, or because of something else entirely.  Or who "Layiru" was other than (presumably) a god, nor what they were god of, and why the Gate and/or Ranma or their actions mattered to them.  Readers have been Left Hanging on this detail since 2009.
 * There has to have been a reason that the three artifacts are subtly but explicitly gendered male, female and neuter.


 * The Chikan: In chapter 6, in reesponse to Ranma's reluctance to ride inside a train, Harukichi prompts her to tell the story of a time she was on a train with Kasumi and punished a groper with a Groin Attack.
 * Later in the same chapter, Harukichi herself drives a throwing spike through the hand of a groper on a train they took on the way to Prince Arisugawa Park.


 * The Chosen One: When Ranma, faced by the magnitude of some of the tasks facing her as the Gate's guardian, has a crisis of confidence in chapter 5, the Gate blandly informs her that because of her talents and skills she is literally the only person on Earth capable of being its guardian and handling the challenges that the role will throw at her.


 * The Clan: The Yamada.  While for the most part we see only Aiko Yamada and Ranma's four female cousins (and a couple servants/family friends), Ranma has several uncles and aunts and numerous other cousins, none of whom are involved with the family's ninja tradition.  Most of them show up on-screen during the wedding.
 * Several other ninja clans are mentioned, but none appeared "on-screen" before the story was abandoned.
 * The recent history of the Saotome clan is also explored in an early chapter.


 * Coattail-Riding Relative: Tomoko, wife of Aiko's son Jiro.


 * Compelling Voice: Aiko can lace ki into her voice to add a level of command to it, but more for immediate imperatives ("SILENCE!") than compulsions or manipulations.


 * Conditioned to Accept Abuse: As a result of epic exploitation of the Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male) trope by the fiancees, Ranma has been essentially "trained" to stand still and be a target for "punishment" after encountering anything that he's learned a girl might take offense to, most especially anything to do with female sexuality.  Kioko is horrified when Ranma reacts to accidentally seeing her in the nude by cringing and waiting to be beaten.


 * Conspicuous Consumption: Generally averted by the Yamada, although not from Ranma's point of view, what with the family providing the cousins and her with cell phones (in 1989!), Japan Rail passes, credit cards, and an allowance that could masquerade as a salary.


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


 * Covert Pervert: Midori, at least where Ranma's concerned.  In chapter 3, when Ranma idly (and innocently) speculates on re-training in her girl form how to get out of rope ties, the image it produces (plus Ranma bouncing her own breasts to demonstrate the "obstructions" she now has to work around) cause Midori to imagine playing BDSM games with Ranma.  After which she blushes furiously and rushes off to calm herself.  At several other times she ends up utterly distracted by (and sometimes drooling over) Ranma.


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


 * Darkest Hour: The story starts at what is clearly Ranma's Darkest Hour:  locked in girl form, the only hope for unlocking the curse destroyed, defeated in combat, buried in an avalanche, and hours from death.  Fortunately, It Gets Better.


 * 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 (and the Garnet Rod taken from her).  Their loss is both inconvenient and personally humiliating -- and turns Crystal Tokyo from a guaranteed future to ... something far less so.


 * 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.)  However, Ranma's confident Ryoga survived, based on past experience.


 * Deprogram: Part of what the Gate does in the process of Bonding Ranma in chapters 6-7 is clear out some magical effects -- presumably applied by or for Genma -- which limited her intelligence and ability to approach things in any manner other than as a combat situation.  Ranma comes out the other side more thoughtful and well-spoken, although she doesn't seem to notice.
 * The Gate also suggests to the Crystal that she engage Sailor Moon to help her deprogram herself from whatever blocks and reprogramming Serenity imposed on her.


 * Disney Death: Twice In-Universe:  First, the misapprehension that Ranma died at Mt. Horai, which is corrected (for the Yamada, at least) 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/Genius Ditz: There's a little bit of this worked into Tsuya's personality.


 * Divorce Requires Death: This certainly seems to describe Nodoka's intentions toward Genma in chapter 6, as part of her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.


 * Doorstopper: The prologue, eleven chapters and one side story which Shurtleff completed total over 750Kb of text, and their content barely sets the story in motion.  If it had been finished, Relatively Absent would likely have been at least 1.5 Mb in length, and probably longer.


 * Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male): This being a Ranma ½ story, it's of course inherent in the source material.  But the double standard is very much averted by the Yamada, Midori in particular; she holds an especial grudge against the fiancee brigade for how they treated Ranma -- and is furious with herself in chapter 3 for accidentally triggering Ranma's defensive reflexes with a ill-chosen comment that echoes that mistreatement.
 * And because of the fiancees' acceptance and exploitation of the double standard, Ranma starts the story with an ingrained terror of anything even hinting at female sexuality, and conditioned to accept physical punishment for the slightest, most innocent encounter with it.


 * 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 that 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.


 * Emergency Transformation: The Gate doing a remote, incomplete bond with Ranma as a way to save her life and get a new guardian, loosely speaking.
 * A better example would be the Crystal triggering Usagi's transformation into Super Sailor Moon at the end of chapter 6 -- because the Crystal couldn't contact the Gate or the Glaive and assumed there might be a crisis situation where she would be needed.


 * 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.  What emotions it possesses are (usually) muted and low-key, but along with other sensory input it enjoys from its symbiosis with a guardian, it can experience (and enjoy) 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.


 * The Emperor: Emperor Hitomaro (who appears to be a fictional counterpart to former Emperor Akihito) plays a critical role in the events of chapter 10, and presumably would have kept playing a role had the story been continued.


 * Face Fault: Luna's response to Ikuko Tsunkino's first comment in chapter 7 is to plant herself face-first in the carpet.


 * Face Plant: In chapter 5 Ranma face plants into a maple tree when distracted by a call to breakfast while practicing the morning after arriving at the Yamada compound.


 * Fainting: Ranma, still weak and recovering from her escape from the avalanche, briefly suffers an Emotional Faint when she learns from the Gate that she is effectively immortal as long as she is its guardian.


 * 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 (and Aiko'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 registry.


 * Family Honor: An important element in both the story and the Backstory. Nodoka is disowned to protect the Yamada family honor (and finances) from Genma and Happosai, forcing Ranma to grow up unaware of any family other than his parents; the Yamada did not rescue him from Genma out of uncertainty whether Ranma was a willing participant in Genma's continuing honorless behavior; Nodoka considers Genma's inaction resulting in the apparent death of Ranma the final dishonorable act from him she can stand, and she also accuses the Tendos of being honorless.  Other acts have ramifications on one family's honor or another, and the demands of family honor drive key moments of the plot, sometimes to whipsawing extremes.


 * First Law of Gender Bending: Subverted -- although Ranma never returns to male in the extant material, the Gate assures her that with sufficient experience she will be able to toggle her gender-switch curse at will.  And even if she doesn't, it will eventually wear off on its own over the course of Ranma's now immensely-prolonged lifespan.
 * When Ranma douses herself in chapter 4 with water sneaked from the Chisuiton by Harukichi during the fight on Mount Horai, it's too degraded to completely break the curse, but it still erodes the lock, decreasing the time needed for it to decay on its own.
 * Naturally, Nodoka buys into this trope full-force, even when expressly told that the lock on Ranma's curse will be broken one way or another.


 * Fish Out of Water/Country Mouse: Ranma as she tries to adapt to life with the Yamada clan.  The sheer opulence of the family home and the wealth and resources they possess (and casually distribute to family members) overwhelm her; the amount of the cousins' allowance alone boggles her.


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


 * Fridge Brilliance: On the part of the author.  Fans have long pointed out the disparity between the names of Sailors Pluto and Saturn, and their functions.  You would expect Pluto would be the Senshi of death and destruction and Saturn (the Roman version of Khronos) that of Time.  Here it's because they were the guardians of the opposite artifacts, giving them the "wrong" powers for their planets.  This is supported by the fact that once Pluto loses the guardianship of the Gate, she loses all time-related powers -- but keeps the ones that have death as a theme, like "Dead Scream".


 * Frills of Justice: Ranma is very personally offended when she learns that the allegedly "sophisticated" guardian uniform is (in her opinion) covered in these, despite the Gate's assurances otherwise.  Later, though, she discovers that some of those frills disguise very effective armor and no few weapons.


 * Fuku Fic: Like Ozzallos' Heir to the Empire, Relatively Absent comes at the idea of the Fuku Fic from an unusual direction, with its own unique spin on the concept.


 * Genki Girl: Tsuya.


 * Gentleman and a Scholar: The Gate's removal of a "neural inhibition" spell combined with its repair of the portions of Ranma's brain damaged by the accidental release of the Nekoken construct, and subsequent upload of expanded vocabulary and language skills to replace what was lost, applies a degree of this trope to her -- her speech and the third-person narration of her thoughts both become more eloquent and quite a bit less informal, and she clearly comes across as more intelligent.


 * The Glomp: Harukichi all but tackles Ranma when she first enters the Yamada home.  Afterward, Ranma explicitly calls it a glomp -- and Harukichi a "red-haired glomp missile".


 * 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 "kawaii" slip in here and there, along with a few other terms (like "butsudan") whose meanings can be inferred from context.  (And at least one -- "koseki tōhon" -- which even in context is unclear. )


 * Grey and Gray Morality: Appears to be the ethos of the Gate.  When describing the events Sailor Pluto was facilitating to bring about Crystal Tokyo, particularly the canonical Class 3 Planetary disaster that ushers it in, the Gate responds to Ranma's horror by blandly noting that there was nothing inherently wrong with Pluto's plan and that many of its guardians had chosen to prioritize the survival of their own species over others.  It does admit, however, that the plan is draconian and that there are less extreme alternatives that would still guarantee the survival of humanity, in larger numbers than Pluto's plan would have.


 * Hammerspace: As the Gete tells Ranma, each guardian has a "storage area" in subspace which, while limited, is still large enough to hold a few personal items and several changes of clothing.  Putting things in and taking them out is a matter of simple visualization.  (Which apparently does not apply to the transformation into guardian form.)
 * Apparently the sailors do not have this storage area, as Setsuna laments its loss after Ranma becomes Guardian Khronos.


 * 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 in the story, which then gets supercharged by the Gate's endless supply of pure ki.


 * Healing Magic Is the Hardest: For the Gate at least, because of how delicate the work is when it has to heal Ranma's mind and brain after the magical construct that was the Neko-ken damaged both before the Gate was able to destroy it in chapter 6-7. But not beyond its abilities.


 * Heavy Sleeper:
 * Tsuya is apparently on a par with Ranma's canon behavior in this regard, judging by Midori's thoughts in chapter 4.
 * On the other hand, Ranma discovers to her annoyance that, after the bonding with the Gate is complete, she now has a built-in alarm clock and cannot just sleep as long as she'd like any more.


 * Hidden Depths: Ranma is surprisingly conversant on varieties of tea, and knows how to comport herself properly when drinking tea with others, thanks to time spent with Kasumi.  She recognizes and understands the social implications of seating positions during tea.  She's also much smarter than she comes across in both canon and fan fiction, which becomes more obvious when the Gate removes a "weak neural inhibiter" effect on her, and later rebuilds her speech centers and language skills after accidentally causing damage during the bonding.


 * 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 Am Not Pretty: Ranma suffers from this in spades.  After reverting from her first transformation into Guardian Khronos, she retains the gorgeous mass of red hair she gained and is even more stunning in appearance than she was to start with -- but despite the obvious affect her appearance has on the residents of the Yamada compound and their verbal reassurances -- some very enthusiastic -- to the contrary, she is convinced she looks like "a complete idiot" and "awful".


 * I Gave My Word: Why Ranma does not abandon the cousins and head right back to Nerima -- because she promised Akane she would return as a man.  (And because Mr. Tendo threatened to force her to marry him if she came back still locked in female form.)


 * I Have No Daughter: Subverted.  While Aiko is forced to disown Nodoka for marrying Genma in order to protect the clan, it is reluctantly and 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 an accountant whom Aiko had thought trustworthy, leaving Nodoka penniless, 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.


 * Ignored Enemy: Ranma abruptly breaks off her fight with Sailor Pluto in chapter 6 to yell at the Gate for misleading her about the apperance of the Guardian uniform.  While Pluto doesn't mind the break (she was already starting to get the worst of the battle), she ends up having to shout at Ranma to get her attention back.  "Oh, so NOW you want to talk?" Ranma snarks.


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


 * Innocent Fanservice Girl: Ranma is this In-Universe to Midori, who is attracted to both her forms.


 * Insistent Terminology:
 * Aiko makes a point of addressing and referring to Ranma with masculine pronouns and other terms, to reassure her that she is perceived as the man she was and is, despite the locked curse.
 * The Crystal consistently refers to individual Senshi as "Protector (Planet Name)" instead of "Sailor (Planet Name)".
 * Similarly, the Gate calls its bonded partners "Guardians".


 * Invisible to Normals: Stunningly averted in chapter 7 when we learn that at least one parent or guardian of each of the Inner Senshi already knew they were Sailor Senshi -- and socialized because of it (as well as had a running bet on which of them would blow the "secret" first).  The Japanese government is very aware of them as well, thank you.


 * Ironic Echo: When she confronts Genma in chapter 6, Nodoka angrily describes Akane as a "violent maniac", unknowingly echoing Kasumi's far fonder description of her sister from the first episode/chapter of Ranma ½.


 * "It" Is Dehumanizing: Explicitly invoked by the Gate regarding itself.  It takes the time to correct Ranma when she tries to assign a gender to it, telling her that "it" is the most accurate pronoun to use because it isn't human, or even alive, precisely.
 * By comparison, the trope is very oddly averted with the Glaive of Space (which is explicitly a "he") and the Crystal of Life (which is a "she").


 * Justified Tutorial: Over the course of chapters 7 and 8, the Gate walks Ranma through all her basic powers and the major functions of the Gate she can access.


 * 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, Nodoka blames "Ranko"'s loneliness, "tomboyishness" and desperate desire to please her on presumed mistreatment by her peers, and cites this trope by name.


 * Knight Templar: Haruka definitely comes across as one; Michiru less so.


 * Lazy Husband: One of the charges Nodoka makes of Genma, as a symptom of his lack of honor and status as an unfit spouse.


 * 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 window of opportunity before Pluto is automatically resurrected to select and bond with a new guardian of its choice.


 * Ludicrous Precision: The Gate does this on several occasions, such as giving the duration of Sailor Pluto's multi-millennia term as its guardian down to the second, or the actual objective time of Ranma's Transformation Sequence down to ten-thousandths of a second.  Then again, the Gate is something like Magitek computer designed specifically to measure and manipulate time, so it's kind of justified,


 * Magical Girl: In addition to the Sailor Senshi, the artifacts' Guardians are also Magical Girls, a fact the Gate was not clear on when offering the position to Ranma.  Ranma is somewhat upset about this when she finally puts it all together and realizes what she's agreed to.


 * Magical Girl Warrior: The artifacts' Guardians are very much warriors, being explicitly tasked with fighting off and putting down anyone who wants their power for themselves.


 * 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.


 * Maid Corps: The Yamada employ a small such corps, and they're all ninja.


 * Manipulative Bitch: Nabiki Tendo, even more so than in most Ranma fics.  When Nodoka informs the Tendo sisters that Ranma is dead, Nabiki's response is to ask, "what proof do you have that Ranma is dead anyway?"  Her only reaction to seeing that proof is to say, "Well, it was certainly fun while it lasted," and to regret the loss of the income and entertainment Ranma had provided her.  She is not a Karma Houdini like many Manipulative Bitches, though, and gets what many might think is Disproportionate Retribution at the hands of the police who arrest her and Akane, at least in the revised version of their arrest.


 * Masquerade: Despite what they might think, the Sailor Senshi are far from the only paranormals on Earth, nor are they Invisible to Normals.  Leaving aside all the magic, ghosts, monsters and other supernatural elements present due to the crossover with Ranma ½, there are apparently Superheroes and other methahumans all over the world; 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.


 * Mind Virus: The Neko-ken turns out to have been a magical example of this trope.  It's only because Genma (predictably) bungled the ritual (which he thought was a martial arts training method) that it only barely had a toehold on Ranma.


 * 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 (or smaller than) Ranma's female form.  The narration explicitly calls her "diminutive".


 * Mood Whiplash: It's rare, but it happens.  One example occurs in chapter 8, when we go from a very serious scene between Midori and Aiko regarding Ranma's reaction to his mother declaring blood feud on the Tendos, to a short scene from Shampoo's point of view, on the trail to Mount Horai, trying to figure out why her great-grandmother (currently riding on top of the massive backpack she's wearing) is whooping and shouting the unintelligible English phrases "ride'em cowboy" and "git along little dogie".  It almost immediately whiplashes right back.


 * Multigenerational Household: The Yamada compound.

"His personality matrix permitted him to swear. He did so. Profusely."
 * Narrative Profanity Filter: Occasionally used.  For instance, in chapter 6, when the Glaive awakens and discovers his guardian (Hotaru) is an infant and can't tell him why he was in Emergency Core Override (and effectively unconscious) for at least a thousand years:


 * 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.


 * Ninja: Nodoka was born into the Yamada, one of the last surviving ninja clans in modern Japan.  (She herself is not a ninja, but a kendoka.)  Ranma's four female cousins are also being trained as kunoichi.


 * Ninja Maid: All of the Yamada maids.  Of them all, though, Seiko acts the most like a Battle Butler to Aiko.


 * Nosebleed: Midori gets one in chapter 4 when a braless Ranma stretches after a nap.


 * Not Blood Related: The cousins, being all Happily Adopted into the clan, are not blood-related to Ranma (although two are sisters and thus related to each other).


 * 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.


 * Old Man Marrying a Child: Perhaps not to the extreme typical of the trope, but Soun's (canon) threat to marry Ranma himself if she fails to break the lock on her curse is viewed in this manner by the Yamada.


 * Original Character: The entire Yamada clan, but especially Aiko, the cousins, and the servants.


 * Overprotective Mom: Strongly implied of Minako's mother Akiko, who is not the parent who knows she's Sailor Venus; her father Hiroshi has apparently been running interference for her in this regard.


 * Parental Incest:


 * Police Brutality: In chapter ((X)), Akane and Nabiki are arrested by local police of Nerima, who mistreat them when they're incarcerated at the local station.  (And in the original version of the scenes, rewritten by Shurtleff after reader complaints, the mistreatment was far more extreme, with Akane blasted with firehoses and Nabiki sexually assaunted.)


 * Power Glows: A side effect of Ranma's Power Incontinence before she finishes the bonding with the Gate.  Just as in real life it indicates that energy is being used ineffciently and wasted, as Ranma and the Gate both note several times.


 * Power Incontinence: Until Ranma can complete the bonding process with the Gate, she suffers from having more ki than she can use, almost more than she can control, and too much to use with any kind of fine control.  And the Gate eventually admits she will lose control of the ki within days if she doesn't complete the bonding quickly.


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


 * Power-Up: In a non-video game example, Ranma explicitly describes the impending completion of her bond with the Gate as this. She's still surprised to find that even before the completion of the bond, her Ki Attacks have been turned practically into strategic weapons.  And after, her pre-existing combat training combined with the implantation of the knowledge of how to use her tools and abilities allows her to start at the third of five tiers of power with those abilities, giving her access to attacks and defenses that Sailor Pluto never even knew existed.


 * Precision F-Strike: In chapter 6, Nodoka calls the Tendos "an honorless family of eta."  "Eta" is an especially nasty term for burakumin, the unspoken-of outcast caste of Japanese society.  It's about the worst thing you can call someone in Japanese, tantamount to "diseased, shit-covered subhuman unwelcome in the company of proper people."


 * Pride: In chapter 7, Haruka demonstrates a truly appalling level of arrogance about how much "better" she and Michiru are than the Inner Senshi, Usagi in particular.  She catalogues just what she believes they need to learn that Haruka and Michiru are just right people to teach them and "push Usagi into greatness".  She is also harshly critical of the very qualities that make Usagi The Messiah, seeing them as inappropriate and unworthy of the Princess that Haruka thinks she should be.


 * 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.


 * Rapunzel Hair: The guardian transformation, among other changes, gives Ranma a thick, curling mane of red hair down almost to her knees.  As an unanticipated side effect (which even the Gate has no explanation for), it doesn't go away when she changes back.


 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Nodoka after she learns of Ranma's apparent death from the videotape given to her by Harukichi.  She publicly declares the end of the Saotome clan; she closes and seals the Saotome family registry, officially "killing" the clan; she declares blood feud on the Tendos; and she reverts to her kendoka training and garb to literally hunt down and kill Genma.


 * Ritual Magic: The Gate's analysis of the Neko-ken revealed that the "training" was nothing of the sort -- it was a magical ritual designed to destroy its subject's mind and personality and replace it with some manner of magical construct intended as an unstoppable berserker.  Fortunately for Ranma, her father bungled it -- apparently by skipping several key steps he either didn't understand or thought were inconvenient -- allowing her to retain her own mind and fight the construct down most of the time.


 * Sailor Fuku: Ranma is appalled when she realizes that the guardian's uniform is a variation on a seifuku, and accuses the Gate of misleading her.


 * Saving the World: Ranma nearly undergoes a Heroic BSOD when she realizes that one of the first tasks facing her as the Gate's new guardian is undoing Sailor Pluto's plan for Crystal Tokyo and saving as much of the 95% of humanity who would have died as she can.


 * Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: At the end of chapter 6, when Luna realizes she's just spoken, loud and long, in front of Sailor Moon's mother Ikuko, she looks up at Ikuko and says, "Umm, meow?"


 * Second Law of Gender Bending: Nodoka attempts to enforce this on Ranma even though she's been told Ranma's lock will eventually end.


 * Seppuku: The final step Nodoka intends to take at the end of her Roaring Rampage of Revenge, only to have it interrupted and rendered moot.


 * Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Part of the key divergence of the Alternate Universe -- a canonical lock on Ranm's gender-bending curse is not undone as it was in canon.  Ultimately subverted, as Ranma learns that it will wear off by itself, or if she trains sufficiently in magic, she can break it faster.


 * 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.


 * Silk Hiding Steel: Aiko, to be sure, but this is a fundamental element of the Yamada ninjitsu.


 * Slapstick: Usagi's panicked reactions to the Crystal's first communications with her in chapter 7 devolve into this, including flailing her ponytails around and getting them in Rei's  mouth while she's trying to get out her transformation phrase.


 * Sleep Cute: Midori is of the opinion Ranma does this, even commenting "kawaii" when seeing her napping.


 * Spoiled Sweet: The cousins come across this way, if you ignore that they are being intensively trained as ninja.

""Check four. Delivery complete, five is in route. Repeat: delivery complete, five in route.""
 * Spy Speak: The cousins use classic "squad in hostile territory"-style code speak over their radio headsets when searching Prince Arisugawa Park for Chibi-usa (and the Gate's Lesser Key) in chapter 6:


 * Stable Time Loop: Played with/averted.  Sailor Pluto was forcing one into existence with Chibi-Usa's visit to the current era (among other tactics), in order to guarantee that Crystal Tokyo came to be.  However, with Ranma's ascension to the position of Guardian Khronos, the time loop is destabilizing, and what was previously the inevitable future is now only a remote possibility.


 * The Stoic/The Spock: The Gate, by its very nature, is calm, dispassionate, logical but also aware of the cost of using its power.  While it does possess emotions, they are generally muted and low-key, which makes the time it expresses anger about Sailor Pluto's behavior such a surprise to Ranma.
 * Subverted by Setsuna, who enjoys projecting this image and tries to live up to it. But she's very emotionally invested in Crystal Tokyo -- when she finally realizes that Ranma is truly replacing her as the Gate's guardian she breaks down in tears and despair at the thought that it may be relegated to a "might-have-been" future.


 * Stuff Blowing Up: Ranma's combat abilities as Guardian Khronos start at "quite destructive" and rapidly escalate from there, as she learns (and inflicts on the Australian Outback) when she first learns how to use them.


 * Suddenly Always Knew That: Ranma discovers that the knowledge of how to use her various tools and powers as Guardian Khronos was been "implanted" in her by the bonding process.  ("Isn’t that like ... well ... cheating?" she asks the Gate. No, because, as the Gate explains, knowing how to use her powers is not the same as having experience and skill in using them, and there's more to what she can do than the simple preprogrammed abilities built into the transformation -- making this a simultaneous invocation and subversion of the trope.)


 * Super Senses: Aiko, Seiko and other members of the Yamada household are able to sense ki, to the degree that they can tell apart family influences (Ranma's ki apparently has markers of both Yamada and Saotome), in addition to strength, aspecting and other qualities.  It is detecting the Gate's vast, pure, "unflavored" and inhuman ki feeding into Ranma's that convinces Aiko that her grandchild is not insane but is in fact in communication with something that she perceives as a kami.
 * Kasumi Tendo possesses a ki sense that helped her balance the "wa" of the Tendo home, and allows her to detect individuals in her unspecified but apparently large range.


 * Surprise Jump: Ranma makes one when Kioko startles her in chapter 3.


 * Swiss Army Weapon: Ranma, being all about the uses of anything to hand in fighting, discovers that the Garnet Rod can shift its shape from a giant key into a more traditional quarterstaff, the better for use in combat.  She also discovers that the bow on the front of her uniform can come off and be used as a whip similar to Kodachi's gymnastics ribbon.


 * Teleport Spam: When Ranma learns one of the guardian powers she gains whether transformed or not is Teleportation, and better yet it was designed with combat in mind, she immediately begins considering how to use it in this manner.


 * Teleportation Sickness: To her surprise, Sailor Pluto suffers a mild case when Ranma teleports her to the Hikawa Shrine, due to how long it had been since she'd been a passenger on a teleport.


 * Third Law of Gender Bending: Ranma works assiduously to avert this trope, starting from the moment she realizes she's giggling the day after she tunnels up out of the avalanche.


 * Transformation Sequence: Ranma gets one as the Gate's guardian, and is somewhat less than happy about the outfit it puts her in, not to mention the massive waterfall of red hair it gives her.  Ranma is even more unhappy with the "naked whirly light show" which accompanies the guardian transformation, until she learns it's an "incentive" built into the magic to encourage its users to master the transformation and not just rely on the "preprogrammed" change (and vows she'll master the magic faster than anyone else in the Gate's memory).
 * She's even more upset when she discovers that -- for reasons even the Gate cannot determine -- the change in her hair color and style doesn't go away when she reverts to her "normal" form.


 * Uncle Pennybags: Aiko comes across a bit like this where Ranma and the cousins are concerned, although there's a whole lot more to her than that.


 * Undisclosed Funds: The Yamada are incredibly wealthy, but the exact specifics of their assets are avoided, other than to demonstrate they are very, very rich.  For instance, when Aiko hires Dr. Tofu as Ranma's personal physician, they buy him a building to be his clinic.  Unfortunately, due to what was available on the market, they had to get a bigger building than they'd planned.  The exact cost is never mentioned.


 * Understatement: The Gate's warning to Ranma that the diagnostic scan needed to complete the bonding process might be "slightly painful", followed by a comment that the final imprinting might be "disturbing".  Two profoundly unpleasant experiences later, Ranma lampshades it:  "You have a positive gift for understatement, you know that?"


 * The Un-Reveal: In-Universe:  Luna accidentally gives away Usagi and the other Senshi's secret identities to Usagi's mother Ikuko in the final paragraphs of chapter 6 -- only to find out in chapter 7 that she already knew (and so do at least one parent or guardian for each of the girls, and at least one has known since the very beginning).


 * 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.

"It’s rather difficult to ignore the existence of a talking cat when it sits outside of your bathroom and has a loud conversation with your daughter."
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Averted in the Backstory.  Ikuko notes in chapter 7:


 * Upgrade Artifact: The Gate is this for Ranma, taking her from an exceptional martial artist to a mystically-powered warrior who, it is implied, can defend an entire world by herself.


 * Wedding Day: Ranma (as the bride) and male!Midor (thanks to instant Jusenkyo powder, as the groom) are married at the behest of the Emperor of Japan in what is the last major set-piece of the extant story material.


 * Weddings in Japan: Shurtleff shows he did the research when he describes Ranma and Midori's very traditional Japanese wedding in exacting detail.


 * 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 her own controlling intelligence once she starts talking to her (and anyone else who'll listen -- the Crystal is a bit of a chatterbox).


 * What's Up, King Dude?: Despite her improved eloquence and vocabulary (thanks to the Gate), Ranma still has a bit of trouble maintaining proper etiquette when meeting with Emperor Hitomaro until the Emperor gives her and Midori leave to address him informally.


 * Whip It Good: While exploring what her guardian form is capable of, Ranma determines that the bow on the front comes off and can be used like a whip (or Kodachi's gymnastics ribbon).

"Eiko chuckled to itself when it noticed a hint of swirly spirals in Ranma's eyes."
 * Wingding Eyes: A bizarre In-Universe example occurs in chapter 3 when Ranma suffers a brief Emotional Faint upon learning she is now effectively immortal:


 * Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Although Genma is not normally so restrained, he can only flee or defend himself against the furious Nodoka, because to actually defeat her would require not only knowledge and skill he doesn't possess, but the willingness to hurt her, which he can't do.


 * You Can't Fight Fate: The inevitability of Crystal Tokyo -- and its implicit guarantee of her victory over all the enemies she had already faced and that have yet to appear -- was a substantial component of Usagi's confidence in herself and her ability to face her foes without, as she put it, gibbering and cowering in a corner.  However, with Ranma replacing Setsuna as the guardian of the Gate, what was once a certainty was now only a low-probability future.


 * You Have Got to Be Kidding Me!: Ranma's response to learning that that trigger phrase for her Transformation Sequence is "Khronos Guardian Power, Make Up".

-

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 a new Old Shame that he no longer wanted associated with his name after shifting his focus to other projects, nor did he want anyone continuing it or his other incomplete stories.


 * Dead Fic: Doubly so:  Firstly, after a prologue and eleven chapters (and one side story) written (and rewritten) over seven years, the story was abruptly abandoned by author Shurtleff (along with all his other fan writing).  Secondly, he abandoned it in what was obviously still the beginning of the story, as he was putting all his pieces on the board before setting the main plot in motion.


 * 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. Ironically, Shurtleff has no problems with this -- he doesn't mind individuals sharing his abandoned work person-to-person, he just doesn't want to see it back online anywhere.


 * Lost Forever:
 * First, the fic itself. It only exists in individual readers' offline archives, because even more than a decade after he yanked his fanwork from the Net, Shurtleff still responds (Kibo-like) to any attempt to repost it with take-down requests.
 * On a smaller level, the entire section where the police arrest Akane and Nabiki -- and what happens to them at the police station -- was originally much more extreme. After complaints by some readers on the FFML (the anime Fan Fiction Mailing List, where Shurtleff was posting chapters), he reluctantly dialed back the Police Brutality in those scenes; the original version is just as lost as the rest of the fic.


 * Shout-Out:
 * There's one to PARAGON by Rob "Kenko" Haynie, another (incomplete) Sailor Moon/Ranma ½ crossover, when the Gate assures Ranma that the magical girl with the talking rabbit mascot does not wear a fancy, frilly outfit.
 * It's strongly hinted that Nodoka's older sister Mai is, or is based on, Mai Shiranui from Fatal Fury and Street Fighter.
 * Early in chapter 7 it's very obvious that Aiko in the middle of reading the comic SF novel Illegal Aliens by Nick Pollotta and Phil Foglio. She even namechecks Pollotta.


 * 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 uniform as Ranma wears in her Guardian Khronos identity.
 * Whatever was to develop as a direct result of the extreme Police Brutality Shurtleff edited out of the story after reader objections.

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