Relatively Absent

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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.

2003-June 2009

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

Tropes used in Relatively Absent include:

• 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 rockfall it caused.

• 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 him alive.

• 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.

• 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.

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

• 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.

• 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 believe -- with good evidence -- that this is the case.

• Gold Digger: Genma, who had ulterior motives for marrying (so he thought) into the Yamada clan.

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

• 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".

• 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 this trope is the case and that herself is The Unfavorite.)

• 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".

• Loophole Abuse: The Gate of Time is unable to disobey their guardian, who has for many thousands of years been Sailor Pluto, nor can it choose a different guardian. Unless its current guardian is dead -- which Pluto briefly is in the aftermath of Mugen Gakuen. The Gate takes advantage of its brief moment of opportunity before Pluto comes back from the dead 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.

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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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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 his last blog entries 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 a lost classic—if you can find it (usually as an archive maintained off-line by a fan), consider yourself incredibly lucky.