Relatively Absent: Difference between revisions
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{{work}}{{MIA}}
When Sailor Pluto kills herself with a timestop at Mugen Gakuen, the Gate of <s>Time</s> 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, 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. Doing so, though, wakes up the controlling intelligences of the <s>Silence Glaive</s> Glaive of Space and the <s>Silver Imperium Crystal</s> Crystal of Life -- which suggest that whatever Queen Serenity intended for their use, it wasn't their ''original'' purpose.
Complicating matters is that 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 is the Japanese National Intelligence Directorate 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 [[User:Looney Toons|a fan]] who is willing to share.
{{tropelist}}
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* [[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.
* [[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.
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* [[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.
* [[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.
* [[Dead Fic]]: After a prologue and eleven chapters written (and rewritten) over six years, the story was abruptly abandoned by author Shurtleff (along with all his other fan writing). ▼
* [[Death by Adaptation|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.
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* [[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.
* [[Face Fault]]: Luna's response to Ikuko
* [[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.
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* [[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 <s>select</s> 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.
* [[Lost Forever]]: ▼
** First, the fic itself. It only exists in offline archives, because even more than a decade after he yanked his fanwork from the Net, Shurtleff still ([[Kibo]]-like) responds 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.▼
* [[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.
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* [[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, cataloguing just what they had to learn that Haruka and Michiru are just ''right'' people to teach them. 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.
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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 [http://web.archive.org/web/20121014103314/http://www.markshu.com/blog/ 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 this or his other incomplete stories.
▲* [[Dead Fic]]:
* [[Keep Circulating the Tapes]]: This story is a lost classic—if you can find it (usually as an archive maintained off-line by [[User:Looney Toons|a fan]]), consider yourself incredibly lucky. ▼
▲* [[Keep Circulating the Tapes]]: This story is a lost
▲* [[Lost Forever]]:
▲** First, the fic itself. It only exists in offline archives, because even more than a decade after he yanked his fanwork from the Net, Shurtleff still ([[Kibo]]-like) responds 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]]:
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* [[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".
* Whatever was to develop from the extreme [[Police Brutality]] Shurtleff edited out of the story after reader objections.
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Source page
* Leave a message on [[User talk:Looney Toons|Looney Toons' Talk page]].
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