Knurd
"Once upon a time... in a world populated by ponies. There was a creature anthropomorphic in shape but perverted in spirit. This creature was man, and his name was Prometheus. Because man likes to spend his free time in acts of creation, while simultaneously destroying anything he cannot control, manipulate, influence, or manage, with reckless abandon. Man's friendship with Celestia was strained by an act of thievery Prometheus consciously knew was wrong. And so, it would come to pass, that man and pony were divided, so the same, over a sign of eternal friendship and selfish love that burns but is untamed."
-PURGS Religion 3rd edition
"... two species bore of the same spirit, but divided in two, were given dominion over the universe; all that is, ever was, or ever shall be. They were divided, yet one in full harmony with all of their being. They were opposite, so the same. They were contrary, so in agreement. They occupied both the light and the dark and from each other drew their strength. Never could they be apart, but only one could destroy the other, and the other destroy the one, thus ending all things. Because of this fact one had to be in control of the other, and so begins the story of hell in Heardshire..."
-Lunapolis Edit
"The brocade butterfly was a symbol of everlasting friendship and the end of all things. For not only was the dance of the butterflies iridescent and hypnotic, it was paralytic too. The tuft of a cloud, a bright rainbow's glow, a pegasus feather, the butterfly's gold (specifically the excrement, vomit, and chitin of a brocade butterfly's carapace) were the ingredients necessary for the pollex prickly pears of potara to bear the seeds of the shujyugan. For this reason, it was essential the brocade butterfly (a species of hemotropic vampire moth) remain alive.
-Totally Random Magazine
"Some people say, you can identify especially bad humans because they have a two dimensional personality, and take great pleasure in foalnaping animals, burning forests to the ground, and probably sneak around in the bushes waiting to rape, or murder, or pillage, and ravage. They don't give a hoot. They're beggars, and blighters, and ner-do-well cats, so lock up your fillies and colts."
-Ghost Pony Writer
AppleBloom ½: Mirrors Multiplied
Apple Bloom ½ : The Brocade Butterfly Effect
Chapter 3
The Name Game/Knurd
"Where do you think you're going? Didn't anyone ever tell you it's dangerous run off alone?" The voice was that of his partner in crime, Discord. Sage advise but Ryoga was a on a mission. Crocodile tears or not Happosai's nanban mirror had better work as advertised. He was on the edge of the everfree forest. Somewhere beyond the bandersnatch and the slithy toves there was a gateway between worlds.
"Don't try to stop me." Ryoga was defensive, using the iron cloth technique he undid the knot in his scarf lengthened bandanna and snapped it into a vorpal blade instead his preferred method of pulling ribbon shuriken out from under his bandanna's knotted pommel, guard, and branch. Rather than his favored gold and green ensemble he was wearing a faded red tank top blouse, short-short cut off jeans, and and sandals all borrowed from Akane's private collection. Because, where the hell else was he supposed to find a decent pair of pants in a land filled with half naked talking unicorns? Sure, he could have gone stag in his birthday suit, or formed some sort of rudimentary codpiece with poison joke, but he didn't want to traumatize the locals. Not that they'd know what they were looking at if they saw something unnatural.
"No, I wouldn't dream of it. This is just the sort of thing I live for. Plus, this is a rather ingenious solution to an unbalanced equation." Discord smirked as he rubbed his mismatched hands in gleeful anticipation. "At the very least I know you'll provide me with a few centuries worth of entertainment. I almost forgot how much humans remind me of butterflies. Each with your own skewed perspective, potential for change, and ability to see possibilities that probably wouldn't exist without you." Discord then pulled a bag of popcorn and magically whipped up a pair crystalline 3D glasses out of subspace. "I mean if Twilight got ahold of the mirror, talk about deja vu, everything would just double over again like clock work and there wouldn't be anymore Sharknado sequels to marathon on Mardi Gras. You! You on the other hand, you're a smart person. Someone who can divide by zero and know your competence isn't hindered by ambiguity..."
A rival will tell you the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
A politician believes a stranger is a friend you haven't met.
A sociopath will tell you a friend is a gift you give yourself.
A manager believes anyone in their chain of authority is a friend.
An addict will tell you if you want a friend you have to be a friend.
A celebrity will tell you a friend is somebody who owes you a favor.
A scientist will argue anyone who knows you by name or reputation is a friend.
But, a cowboy will tell you a friend doesn't just bail you out of a jam, they go down in the muck with you.
And, a neighbor will tell you a true friend would give you the shirt off their back, then forget to return something they borrowed while offering you an opportunity _for something of lesser value_ in exchange.
The French believe that the definition of friendship among women is different from the definition used by men. Although, depending on time of day, it has been argued by the culturally ignorant you can never really tell if the French are gay or european.
Some psychologists believe that the more friends you have the better your basic level of functioning, potential, or ability to cope... Completely discounting other obvious problems caused by friendship like developmental disorders, personality disorders, mood disorders, while also ignoring factors that really affect functioning like social status, class, education, prejudice, laws of physics, financial constraints, time, chance, property, poverty, personal space, basic economic principals; And, the random whims of sadistic individuals who believe the only alternative to war is subjugation, mostly because they wouldn't know the difference between peace and compromise if it bit them or their ass. Of course, it goes without saying all the aforementioned problems of the world can be resolved easily with friendship,right? Especially, under the guise of protecting society rather than assisting the culture to change for the better.
Naturally, it's also true an inquisitor only tortures the folks they don't like. So, you're probably going to be okay.
There are four measures of success that are almost always universally accepted under the just world hypothesis of sadists: 1) The number friends and disciples one has. 2) How well you serve others, your government, or master. 3) Personal Achievement, so long as it is beneficial to others. And, 4) How much money or resources you have at your disposal. The theory being one measure of success buys the other three... Unless, of course, you have an unpleasant personality or are considered a "negative" person. Because happy good, anger bad; and if you aren't successful it's because you're unconsciously jealous or angry with the confederacy of idiots around you. In which case, you deserve what you get for being a bad apple and should know that the beatings will continue until morale improves. You aren't affirmed or loved because you obviously hurt other people by being honest when you know silence is golden and duct tape is silver. You've failed at loyalty when you expect reciprocation for support, encouragement, kindness, trust, or the benefit of a doubt, when you cannot offer unconditional high regard. You've murdered love by wanting care, commitment, consideration, and catharsis when what you need is a lesson in humility, ridicule, and obligation. And respect? forget any idealistic notions about that being something kind of like an admiration for one's ability to show tolerance, sympathy, generosity, kindness, and gratitude, or the ability to treat others with dignity, fellowship, appreciation, and courtesy.
In fact, in a sadistic culture, respect is an arbitrary concept of personal entitlement, judicious trepidation, and ritual bootlicking that exists only to selfishly establish boundaries and sanctions for other people using rough trade. Religion was supposed to change all that, not reinforce it, then science came along, it changed the world view for a while, but many thousand years of human history (documented or otherwise) later and people are still motivated by self interest, and not necessarily for the greater good. Because, human beings still view things in simplistic opposition to one another and call it a just world hypothesis. They created a doublet system wherein good & bad, right & wrong, justice & poverty are all in opposition to one another. For every angel in heaven there is a demon, and for every human that develops a personality disorder in childhood or adolescence, there's a pony out there somewhere that gets it's cutie mark.
However, there are still some wandering this world who believe in change for the better. Because, change is as inevitable as death and taxes. So long as there's life there's hope. And, hope springs eternal that individuals can change without working against their nature, or changing that nature against their will. Of course, Some people don't have or keep friends the way one takes responsibility for a pet and looks out for their welfare. Even if you were your brother's keeper you wouldn't be responsible for their crimes, their words, or their actions. If friendship is the concept of mutual trust among equals, then one often wonders where are the people like me? " If any one asks..."Ryoga started.
"I'll tell them I chased after you past the first star to the right and ran straight on till morning. Tah tah!" Discord waved goodbye with his free appendage.
"O.K. For real this time!" the eternal lost boy cried out as he activated the Nanban Mirror. Within a flash of light, the world around Ryoga Hibiki disappeared in a burst of thought.
It has been argued that humans really are more like wasps than the birds and the bees. Take away their cognitive complexity, their sense of humor, their ability to tell stories, deny their insight, dismiss their creativity, ignore their right to self determination, perhaps offer some other justification for fatalism or dependency, and the only thing left is spirit, appetite, and reason. That, and their propensity for mimicking or copying the survival strategies of all that breathes, swims, and crawls upon the earth. For there is no creature feebler than man so long as the gods grant him the tools and resources to overpower or overcome this life with only the spirit of a butterfly. And, while a horse couldn't be expected to feel the weight of a stone for the want of a nail, the same stone could be the nail in a butterfly's coffin.
Enter the Shujyugan, an enoki like cordyceps mushroom (developed by dragons) to reduce the aggressive, heterotrophic, and entomophagous tendencies of one apex predator towards their mullerian antecedents. Whether it was convergent evolution, or emsleyan morphology, the brocade butterfly was not exactly what one would consider a good feeder insect. Unlike changelings; a creature that could only be described as the unholy offspring of a 250 pound jeweled wasp _and a glass winged butterfly with the wingspan of an adult pegasus_; Brocade butterflies didn't just taste like turpentine saturated with ovarian ink. Worse, their blood was like an ink made of urushiol mixed with curry and had enough lucibufagins to kill a juvenile within a matter of minutes if left untreated. The fact that the inquilline butterflies lived among both the changeling and equus populations, with the latter slowly becoming brightly colored batesian mimics, and the former being almost exclusively used for reproduction. It was only a matter of time before the dragons took steps to eliminate the threat to the sustainable food supply.
Besides, the idea of a Dragon being laid to waste by a Breezy the size of a Minotaur, defeated the purpose of contaminating the water supply in general. Especially after the alchemists of the badlands went through the trouble of developing a scatological protozoa, from the michigan of froggy bottom bog, to carry a (mostly harmless) baculovirus. One designed to make the livestock break out into show tunes, or giggle at the ghosties, whenever they have a pique of emotional disequilibrium. After all, there is no point in hunting the ponies constantly running into, and out of, the everfree forest _for no apparent reason_ if you couldn't track them down to their nest and smite them all like kittens.
The means of infecting the brocade butterflies with cordyceps was also quite ingenious. Patient zero, code named Chrysalis, was a genetically engineered hybrid. Created exclusively for the sole purpose of eliminating the blight upon the food supply, without infecting or contaminating the other 'tastier' weta in Equestria, she turned out surprisingly resilient. Her conception was actually surprisingly difficult for the alchemists of the badlands until a 'fabulous' sea serpent known only as Algernon, who really wanted to be called Steve, made a shocking discovery. He learned that if you made a porridge with royal jelly, a witches brew comprised of a dragon's whisker (along with a few other magical ingredients that may or may not be considered the ultimate aphrodisiac), and monster's ink, one has all the tools necessary for a magical mutagenic compound. Anyways, once ingested the chemical makeup of the porridge breaks up the blood molecules into kittens, or something, then their cuteness sets phasers to hug. Which allows for the Tuvix bonding of DNA between two incompatible species without intercourse, lighting your farts on fire, or illicit drugs and alcohol. In fact, the process is so very magical and scientific even the author can barely explain it.
Which, brings us to Prometheus. The last of the brocade butterflies, who entered the final throws of death after breaking bad from the cancerous cordyceps, latched on to the first female thing he encountered and managed to impregnate Celestia's woobie. A purple monkey named 'Dishwasher,' for reasons that will probably never be explained, was horribly violated. Although, many suspect the purple monkey was named for its desire to lick a plate clean after having cake and eating it too, the monkey was actually a golem created by Celestia to act as her girl friday. Imbued with Celestia's magic the unnatural creature immediately unleashed the power of the sun upon her visitor. Then, with all the grace of a pineapple being shoved through a straw, Dishwasher eventually laid an egg (or was slowly and painfully eaten alive by the butterfly wasp larva). Soon, a parasitic race of larval monkey demons was born. In addition to a race of horribly mutated changeling creatures infected with cordyceps, seaponies, threstrals, bugbears, ahuizotal, and twittermites. But, in all fairness, the para-sprites had it coming.
Prometheus wasn't the only brocade butterfly to go on a wild mating spree that day, the vampire like species of butterfly as a whole just went ape nuts, and ran amok in an attempt to lay and impregnate everything that looked like it was remotely compatible... like green alligators, and long necked geese, humpty backed camels, and some chimpanzees, bats, and rats, and elephants, and you can be sure, the luckiest of all was the unicorn. Thus, spreading cutie pox, feather flue, petrification, rabies, and tonsillitis, throughout all of Equestria faster than you can say prestidigitation. Ever the pragmatist, Celestia had the offspring (at least the ones that didn't look like ponies) rounded up and disposed of in the most humane manner she could come up with. Namely, shoving them all through a hastily enchanted looking glass and making the horrible creatures quietly disappear, like she had done with Sunset Shimmer when she discovered the poor dear had "ambition" and wanted "power" of all things. Because, the idea of injustice anywhere was a threat to her perfect world everywhere. So, fearing the fallout of trauma visited upon her little ponies if they were reminded of intercourse, Celestia magically fig leafed the entire population with magic. It goes without saying, after the deed was done, the living portion of dragon's food supply was irreparably contaminated with lucibufagens and the west wing virus. In fact, the dragons probably would have gone completely extinct if they hadn't evolved a capacity to obtain vitamins from minerals or developed new uses for the aerial screw.
Many years later within the city limits of Ponyville, in yet another time and place to be determined...(But, probably around the same time a dignitary from Canterlot arrived to check up on the final preparations of the Summer Sun Celebration. Then panicked when an evil enchantress showed up to crash the party.)
The day had started out like a stuffed shell recipe and then devolved into a purple monkey dishwasher. Emphasis on the purple monkey. There was no reason for Pinkie Pie to be so knurd, she hadn't done anything wrong. In fact, she was in desperate need of high spirits, and only the finest in both caffeine transcendence and the gifts of the mother liquor would do. Just as soon as she figured out how to escape these prison walls. It was as if some pony took the cheesy spinach filling meant for the stuffed shells and decided to make a chimichanga. Ignoring the fact that you would technically be reinventing the quesadilla, before frying up okra until it was nice and snotty, and then covering everything with the stinkiest, most fishiest smelling shirataki noodles in the world hard boiled in cabbage soup. Naturally, if Pinkie had with her all the ingredients necessary to make a pan-galactic gargle-blaster she'd be faster than Filly-Second on a sugar high. After all, the pony equivalent of 307 ginger ale, with five hour energy, and a red bull chaser was a well known treat among all the party ponies in her head cannon. Unfortunately, she instinctively knew her attempts at self medication were quickly wearing off. She knew this because at least one of her tulpa was physically present, in more than the phenomenal third man sense, and the little voices in her head were once again inspiring her to play the bass guitar, or start listening to rocks and bags of flour again.
One thing was certain, 'Illeism wasn't being as objective oriented as usual, and had started singing awoooga-chaka about how much she liked Rainbow Dash after complaining about pony oppression. And, 'Gypsy wasn't exactly sure why Pinkie Pie was asking her if she knew any magic tricks that could allow any of them to spontaneously phase through walls. Of course, Pinkie was pretty sure Gypsy was holding out on her, despite protestations she was a regular ol' earth pony. Pinkamena, on the other hoof, was once again questioning the nature of reality. After all, if life was so fair then why do roses have thorns? Naturally, Pinkie ignored 'Mena Jack because she was a grumpy pants under the delusion that she was a farmer at sweet apple acres. Despite being forthright, blunt, and being brutally honest to the point it was downright painful. 'Mena jack was crazy. Insisting that that Apple Bloom was her niece, Big Mac was her brother, and that some "talent-less hack from Manehatten" named Appletini was the poor girls mother. Then, Surprise said she'd ask her friend Blue Star what she would do next time she was in Canterlot. Surprise tried to reassure Pinkie that Blue Star wasn't just GED smart; she was PhD smart. But, that really wasn't all that helpful since Surprise was just another voice inside her head, and would probably never get there (Canterlot that is) without her help.
Sweetie Drops, known to most of the locals as Bon Bon, woke up in the gray bar motel half expecting to be in chains. She had a knot on her head the size of a meatball. It smart like the sting of a wasp, and made her feel pretty stupid. She had first hand experience with a similar technique called the umi-sen kengyu, one of the newer minotaur fighting styles developed by Grandmaster Taro. A style borrowed heavily from Krav Maga and something called the art of of the sneaky thief, wherein the opponent seems to teleport moments before knocking you out cold. She winced as she rubbed at the sore spot, that was definitely going to leave a bruise. Having recently returned to consciousness the Saddle Arabian spy took stock of her surroundings. Escaping the Ponyville jailhouse was tarter sauce compared to tartarus, but that really wouldn't really matter if she was the only fox in the henhouse.
Bon Bon wasn't exactly alone, but she wasn't entirely sure if either of her companions were stable. A statement that seemed woefully ironic given the paddock they were in. Although, the presence of two Pinkie Pies would explain how she was seemingly everywhere at once, and somehow had a ready alibi for the local disappearances and murders attributed to the 'six winged serpent' killer. Although it still wouldn't explain the identical cutie marks, Sweetie Drops was reassured her changeling in sheep's clothing theory held water... which held better than her bladder had while she was unconscious.
Sweetie was separated from the two Pinkie's on either side, by bullet proof glass partitions, with holes cut through out the middle of the glass horizontally. The floor was cold, grey, and only a few shades lighter than the charcoal shades of iron in the bars. To make matters worse there was a grid of electrified steel or aluminum razor wire that hummed beyond the iron cage she found herself in. Naturally, since the local drunk tank was designed with a unicorn in mind it was fortified against most magics, and no amount of physical brawn an earth pony could bring to bere _short of that available to an ursa minor_ could put a dent in the cage before they were electro-stimulated into unconsciousness. What made her cell unique was that it was intended to protect an interrogator, detective, or witness from the ponies on the other side of the glass... which, oddly enough, made it more secure than the cells holding the one, two, many Pinkie Pies.
This made the position her captor put her in most unusual, if not incompetent. While Sweetie was unable to unlock her cell from the inside out, it was entirely possible Starscream was unaware the middle paddock could open the doors, or rather the portcullis of the other two cells independently of each other. Despite being locked in like a monkey in the middle, she could very well release one or both Pinkie Pies immediately. Track down the Kirin, and get even with the backstabbing guttersnipe. Even if Starscream was a mildly ethical villian, this aggression would not, could not, go unpunished. Sweetie Drops pushed herself to her feet unsteadily. Her head hung low until she had regained some sense of equilibrium. But, nothing could prepare her for the stygian reflection in the glass. She could have sworn she saw a ghost like image of Starscream close enough to cause physical injury, close enough to kill her, if Sweetie hadn't misplaced her footing and slipped on her own urine like it was a patch black ice or a banana peel. If she didn't have at least one foot on stable ground she might have fallen completely flat on her face and busted her snoot. As it was she only wound up in a downward dog position with her fore hooves splayed out. Looking up with a crick in her neck the spy noticed the asperi, the apparition, seemed to have developed a contemptuous smirk the moment Sweetie attracted the attention of the other two prisoners.
"Good. All of you are awake." Starscream, or at least the infinity mirror like hologram thing that bore her faded appearance said. The being reflected within the glass partitioning the cells of the paddock containing all three earth ponies seemed relieved."There's a problem... Ranma needs your help." it didn't matter to Sweetie Drops which of the reflections she looked at, being that they were on either side of her and the voice seemed to be coming from all directions and nowhere as a whisper to her ears. So, she did the sensible thing and chose to look at the less familiar looking Pinkie Pie, the one who looked super depressed and knurd, rather than the one with a murderous gleam in her eye. At least, that was her intention, until the split second when the other Pinkie Pie started laughing maniacally, taking the concept of giggling at the ghosties a step beyond the pale of what one would consider creepy, and delved straight into the horrifying.
"Hey! What gives? You're the jerk that ruined my basement." The straight haired Pinkie Pie said in a moment of discord.
"Uwah! ha ha ha ha ha ha. looks like we're in for good show tonight. heh heh heh heh, ha ha ha ha. He he he, Yes." The Pinkie Pie with the wild and moussey rats nest of cotton candy for hair seemed to clear her throat before regaining her composure.
"Who's this we? 'You got a mouse in your pocket?" Sweetie asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer of the creature who stood before her. A creature that resembled Pinkie if she were moments from being a walking corpse, a corpse that had just barely crossed the uncanny valley of death save for a sick smile or clownish grin. Sweetie wasn't sure she wanted an answer to her questions much less be part of it.
"Mousie? Yes, there was a Mousie. But, he is now Pogo Surprise. But Still, we are also Pinkie, an' 'Mena, and the normal one too, of course. Ha He he, hah hah hah, a hoo hoo, Yes."
"QUIET YOU! Anyway, the "WE" that's all of us, need to stop Nightmare Moon _and rescue Ranma_ before that succubus drains his magical aura and permanently links us together. I can teleport like the raven king and shadow-jump like a dragon-wraith, but I still need your help. I think, between the two of us, Ranma and I can probably distract her long enough and buy you some time, but you need to get to the creepy castle in the woods stat. And, I mean like now, before she completes the familiar summoning ritual.
"Who's Ranma?" Pinkie Pie was pretty sure she knew everyone in the one horse town that is Ponyville like the back of her hoof.
"Pinkie Prime, has a good point. Why, in the name of Celestia, should we help you?" Sweetie Drops asked. She wasn't particularly motivated to help some self absorbed, troll faced, cotton headed ninny-mugger. "It's not like you've done anything to deserve it."
"Look, I really don't have time for a debate right now. Nightmare Moon is still playing with those fillies who like singing ritardando crap while looking for the elements of harmony. And, the only reason I'm even here right now is 'cause Ranma fell asleep. We don't have the time or energy to waste playin' the stupid game right now. So, you want in,' and out of your cages or what?"
"What, definitely what." Sweetie Drops replied, not entirely sure 'what she was agreeing too.
"Will there be apple cider?" The newly christened Pinkie Prime asked.
"Down with pony oppression. Yes." Pogo quipped.
Somewhere in the everfree forest...
"Wow! Trixie, ah'm sorry I doubted you. When you said you defeated an Ursa Major I kinda' thought you was just blowing smoke up our butts."
Trixie gulped, "Y-yes, The Great and powerful T-tr Trixie defeated this manticore with her awesomeness..." Trixie looked at what was left of Roger, the trained manticore she was bringing to the summer sun celebration for her lion tamer act. Saying she was surprised to stumble across the corpse of the personal bodyguard she was hoping to count upon as a guardian, while she and the others trundled through the Everfree forest after surviving the fall off a cliff face with minor injuries, was an understatement. "Y-you have nothing to fear so long as Trixie is here. *cough* Yes, W-we, we, should probably get Muh-moving before the ti-ti-timberwolves show up."
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This story just keeps getting weirder and weirder. I'm not sure what to make of it, but I can't stop reading...
Poor Sunny Muffins.
6428120
I would have responded sooner, except I'm not sure if I should respond to every comment or wait a bit and ride it out before saying hello. I realize I don't have many readers, and it wouldn't hurt to respond to each one of them individually for the moment. Know that your comments are greatly appreciated, and I look forward to your continued input and advise. Thank you.
Do you have any problems, concerns, conflicts, issues, or interests related to the story that I could resolve?
6432748
The paragraphs are very long, huge blocks of text are hard to digest. I'm not sure what to make of it because while the formatting and style could use work, the content itself is solid, and no mispellings I could see.
Though by 'solid' I am skipping over the fact that it's completely mad. I don't know what to make of the story because the presentation is weird, and context is weird in a completely different way (poor Sunny Muffins), and the general direction of the story makes it difficult to predict what will happen, at all. Not that it isn't already difficult to follow a story that hasn't decided which timeframe it is running in. The part with Akane is no mere flashback, it's way, way too detailed for that.
It's just difficult in general to tell what is going on, and when I can tell what is going on, it's half madness anyway.
Not that the story is a bad story, it just means I don't know what to make of it, but I just cannot stop reading it.
6432777
I do apologize, at least in part for the madness. Anime, for me in general is just one of one of those things that seems almost impossible to explain unless you see it. Obviously, someone was able to explain it, and I could probably dedicate a whole chapter explaining every one of Ranma's curses, which I was holding off on until Ranma and his father arrive at the Tendos. Most likely the next update. The Mousse kidnapping Akane story is roughly thirty episodes into the TV series, and the demonic possession of Kasumi was sometime later. And, I was really trying to compress the events in Ranma universe until they the 'nerima wrecking crew' try to fix everything using haposai's Nanban mirror.
Fortunately, the episodes of Ranma 1/2 are currently available for free on hulu. And, DjClyde made character profiles for the main cast and a few irregulars. Sadly, there is no explaination forthe nanban mirror unless I direct you to the episode on hulu...
Obviously, the following links wouldn't fix the story. And, there really is no way to spoil the events to come since Ranma is about as wacky as pee wee's playhouse, and even if I described what happened it would be very difficult for me to copy from the source material. Which is a good thing because it keeps the summary somewhat honest.
Mushrooms of time...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdWE2hAa47E
Techniques...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-fXyj-ogkE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzbz0dt3GxE
Mirror, Evil, Shadow Clone Ranma...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6W4h0x-3Ik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WidZxeWRTYQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpqW-NEXts0
And, there are more alternate Ranma personalities than those three.
Brocade Butterfly...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwcIEhuZdXo
Gosunkugi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ3BCnwM83o
Mousse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nucyCE6oOI
Ryoga/P-Chan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W014ekSbQU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irVnl8pfwDU
Nanban mirror...Episode 55
http://www.hulu.com/watch/611194#i0,p52,d0
6433977
For the record, I am familiar with Ranma 1/2, it was my first genuine anime I watched. I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about it as you are, but I know pretty much all the characters.
The major issue is that the story is doing Two Lines No Waiting structure, twice over, separated temporally. That is, 'the future' and 'the past' are the two narrative threads being followed, and in each one it is swapping back and forth between perspectives as well. Add in a lot of only tangentially relevant information, it's hard to pick apart what is important versus what is just background information that probably won't come up again.
Now, I'm not saying such an idea can't work, I think it's rather interesting as is, but it does make things a bit confusing. Added on top of other issues the story has, it can make the entire product as a whole difficult to follow. Not that I can predict what will happen even if I could follow it, it's that kind of story after all.
I'm still enjoying it, it's just... completely unpredictable, and each chapter is almost separated from the previous one in terms of how connected the threads are. Like, so far, each chapter could have been the prologue, and it wouldn't have changed much. That's how confusing it all is.
If the threads were connected in a more coherent way, then I think this might be a good story. But as it is, it'd be like watching Ranma episodes out of order, and only select scenes of it at that.
6434045
Thanks for the message. I appreciate the link. And, I'll try and braid the threads together as best I can next update. But, I am a bit behind on my reading. It's nothing assigned mind you. However, I like to keep my goals time oriented, it makes me feel like I'm kind of on track. I'm currently studying double bind communication strategies which I thought would be beneficial.