From:Steven Scougall (S.Scougall@student.anu.edu.au) Subject:Final version of The Guide to the GRIT Newsgruoops:rec.arts.anime.misc (This is the only article in this thread) Date:1996/07/22 Well, this is it folks, this is the very last version of the GRIT that I'll ever bore you with. Those of you that hate the GRIT can shout 'hooray.' Why is this the final version? It just is. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ GUIDE TO THE GLOBAL RANMA INSANITY THREADS (GRIT) Version 3.0 TABLE OF CONTENTS -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- * On with the guide * A bit of history 1. In the beginning... 2. The Trench Wars 3. The Clone Wars 4. The Wedding 5. The Honeymooners 6. Blade's Revenge 7. The thirding of the Steves 8. The tournament * Points of interest about the clones and curses 1. Clones 2. Curses * GRIT resources * Afterword * Thanks * The post that started it all * Revision history ON WITH THE GUIDE -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This is a rough beginner's guide to the Global Ranma Insanity Thread (GRIT for short), which is going on at rec.arts.anime.misc at this very moment. You know the one. It's the one that seems to make no sense and has such weird happenings as @bapping, Alexis, and clones and curses galore. Why I am I doing this? I originally started writing this for a friend because I ran out of time trying to explain it to him by word of mouth. He had a bus to catch. After I started writing what became version 1.0, I realised it was larger than I thought it would be and also that it might be handy to anybody coming across the thread and having NO idea what it is. Which is why I eventually posted it. If there is something wrong (I'm doing my best to locate all errors and squish them flat with a large mallet) then please tell me. A BIT OF HISTORY -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 1. In the beginning... ...was rec.arts.anime, void of the nonsensical thread this is a guide to. Some time in early 1996, a young innocent by the name of Tony Chin posted a simple little post titled 'Ranma's Best Babe.' He stated that Ukyou was, in his opinion, the best of the lot and outlined his reasons why. Little did he know what would happen... (For posterity and records and all I've included the message at the end of this Guide. Many thanks to Blade for digging it up.) From this simple message came one of the longest running threads ever seen on r.a.a. (Well, not exactly a thread, it's been renamed many times but the spirit of it has lived on. The 'thread' has even survived r.a.a. dying - it merely shifted locations to r.a.a.misc.) For there is nothing that can inflame a Ranma fan more than arguments about who the best babe on the show is. People replied to the original message and these first replies. They said things like 'It's Akane', or 'It's Shampoo', or 'It's Ukyou', and so on. Then people continued to reply to the posts, trying hard to convince the others their view was the only correct one. In these initial skirmishes, three of the main protagonists were revealed. Jason Heavensrun was an unabashed Akane fan. Caroline Ann Seawright, better known as Kunoichi or simply Kun-chan, wanted Ryouga for herself but supported Akane as Ranma's best babe. Alexis Barrerra dissented, he said Shampoo was the best. Heated arguments ensued. On the sidelines were many others, including Werewolf, Kenji, and Steven Scougall (myself). They would occasionally post something to the on- going debate. But nothing was ever resolved. Due in part to the way nobody would listen to the others' arguments. 2. The Trench Wars. Eventually some newbie to the thread mentioned 'is this a war of some sort?' (exact wording forgotten.) It certainly seemed to be, what with Alexis and Kun-chan and Jason all arguing quite heatedly. To this request the mighty Werewolf replied "It's all out war, son. Start digging them trenches." ... something along these lines. Jason took this pretty much literally and started writing in the now accepted script format, writing of a battlefield set somewhere, with trenches for the various teams (Akane's team, Shampoo's team, all six of Kodachi's team, and so on). When he posted, the Akane team started winning. When Alexis posted, the Shampoo team started winning. When Kun-chan posted, the Akane team didn't start losing and Kun-chan started winning Ryouga. Kenji Bashaw became a major player at this point. Kenji was sort of a sideliner, seeing the need for Shampoo's minions to be beat back, but he was a self-proclaimed Ukyou fan. When he posted, he was just himself. The fact that he had a wife, Niki, was revealed during this exchange. She is a force to be reckoned with. She knows All and can make Kenji wash the car or mow the lawn. The exact proceedings have been collected by Jason Heavensrun into a full script format and have been posted to rec.arts.anime.creative as Trench Wars (I think.) The collection can probably be found at ftp.std.com/archives/anime-fan-works/Ranma as ranma.trench.wars.gz. 3. The Clone Wars The result from the Best Babe Wars was a win for the Akane armies. It was sort of a fuzzy win, and of course Alexis continued to post, trying to salvage some honour for Shampoo. This of course was pounced upon by Jason and MadP and Kun-chan and so on, as they shot him down in flames AGAIN. The skirmish continued on in an erratic random manner, but many more characters appeared. We had the MadPunk (better known as MadP) from New Zealand. Victor W. Wong and John H. Bogan appeared (but haven't been seen for a while.) Most importantly (for me at least), I appeared as the Steve from Australia. Also showing up was Plunger, also known as Martin Bennet, or more recently, P-Word. This extremely homicidal self-proclaimed demon maniac is the Enforcer of the Church Of Ryouga and Slave to the High Pristess. The High Priestess being Kun-chan. He showed up somewhere early on in the Clone wars, or perhaps in the pre-Trench Wars arguments. He has a tendency to rip out spleens. What happened next is a bit of a fuzzy area. It doesn't have a clear cut beginning nor a clear cut ending. We in the GRIT call it the Clone Wars. For obvious reasons. Alexis, early on, was placed in an asylum cell with two Shampoo dolls in opposite corners. He would start going to one, then turn and go to the other, then turn and head to the other, totally confused. Eventually, from sheer psychological trauma, Alexis was freed from the usual restrictions of time and space and could now exist at multiple points at the same time. At the time it seemed like there was a clone of Alexis. This was all the others needed. Through various other methods, including Star Wars cloning chambers, nanorobotechnology gone bad, and my favourite, Narrative Imperativity, clones started appearing. It became the thing to have a clone. Some also started to gain Jusenkyo curses. The net result of the Clone wars: 1) Lots of clones and Jusenkyo curses... ...which I am not going to delve into too much detail here. Kenji's Guide to the Participants has a lot of detail on these. 2) Shampoo got her memory shampooed! All her memories about Ranma were removed by a hugely advanced memory erasure technique. While in this state, she was convinced she was engaged to Alexis. There is some confusion about what happened to Shampoo. Frank White suggests that there are two of them, one with Alexis and the other with Mousse. 3) Most importantly, MadP and Jason dared Ranma to propose to Akane. Ranma actually went ahead and did it. This started the next story arc. It is extremely unlikely that anybody will be collecting all the posts, editing them together into one Clone Wars story, and posting it. As MadP says - "You HAD to be there." What followed was MUCH more interesting, anyway. 4. The Wedding Ranma and Akane were now engaged. Time was tight, in about sixteen days rec.arts.anime was going to go away for ever and the wedding had to be done and written up and finished and POSTED (it made it on the FINAL day). Then it moved to rec.arts.anime.misc. New characters were introduced. During this arc, Blade came along. He's a devoted Ukyou fan and has romantic intentions with her. He also has a wicked cursed form. (But he's going to have to take an oil-can around with him in case of rust.) Because of various things Ranma has done to Ukyou, Blade hates Ranma's guts with a passion. Some other minor characters came along. Rol, the guy who always fixes the Tendou dojo, appeared, for instance. I think Frank White, who is a very erratic poster, showed up towards the end of this arc. Of course it didn't proceed all that smoothly. After all, this IS Ranma 1/2. Things have to go wrong. It's some kind of tradition. The full collected Wedding arc should have been coming from Jason Heavensrun - but a power surge wiped out his hard disk and he lost all the saved posts. Whether we'll ever see a full collected Wedding arc fanfic is up in the air. Guest appearances by the Pope, Lone Starr, and Barf. 5. The Honeymooners This was also one of the most confusing parts so far. It resembled the Trench wars combined with the Clone wars with at least twice as many participants - and half the participants writing against each other. Thankfully however we seem to have got it sorted out and finished. Ranma and Akane, now married, go on honeymoon in Fiji. Almost all the regulars went along with Ranma and Akane to make sure nothing went wrong. In the usual Ranma 1/2 style, things of course went drastically wrong. Sometime during this arc the ancient wizard (but not so ancient as to shrink) wizard SKJAM! showed up, with Miss Hinako. SKJAM! is the one who started the Marriage Prospects series of posts all that time ago. In this arc he was not centrally involved. Sizzler Bob also showed up as this story arc's villain. He's now nice (or at least not evil) and in artificially-induced love with one of the TWO Kodachis. His evil aspect, Sizzler Skippy, is around somewhere. Wyldfire also tried being this arc's villain after Bob but no-one was interested. Guest appearance by Mr. Satan (from DBZ), one of the sillier characters from that show. 6. The Homecoming - Blade's Revenge. Shortly after we all got back from Fiji and settled back into Nerima, Tokyo, Blade decided he'd had enough of Ranma. He challenged Ranma to a fight but just to make sure he'd win he demonstrated a new ability to suck out people's energy or traits (such as Kun-chan's cuteness or Kodachi's insanity.) Blade eventually lost. This was a rather short-lived arc. 7. The Homecoming - Thirding of the Steves A very short side story that removed two of the Steves from the GRIT. The most insignificant character in the GRIT, Twig, appeared here. 8. The Married Years - Tournament This arc is now underway, started by (I think) SKJAM! It also marks what appears to be the reappearance of Rol. John H. Bogan has re- appeared. Essentially, so as to raise money so that the dojo bills can be paid, Nabiki and Jason decide to hold an unarmed freestyle martial arts competition, with one wish for absolutely anything as the prize. Everybody has signed up, and things are underway. There are about SIXTY-FOUR (No! It's too many! Argh!) participants competing against each other. MadP and SKJAM! are refereeing. POINTS OF INTEREST ABOUT THE CLONES AND CURSES -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This section was originally created to explain some of the more peculiar aspects of the participants. This is, of course, a very large area that needs a whole new guide to itself. And so Kenji has created a guide to the characters on the GRIT. It has a lot more detail on each participant and any clones, evil twins, long lost siblings, and so on. So this part of The Guide has been wound down and is now almost insignificant. 1. CLONES Jason has Jacen and Jei-san; there's Kun-chan1 and Kun-chan2; there are the two Alexi (technically not clones); there were the three Steves (Steve1, Steve2/Sku-chan, Steve3) but Steve1 and Steve3 have now gone from the regular GRIT; and there's MadP1 and MadP2 (not exactly clones). If memory serves there was also Emil1&2, who got the nanorobotechnology mucked up and bacame a pair of Siamese twins, and I also remember a David who got two clones. These two haven't been seen for a LONG time. Perhaps they lost access when RAA went to the great hard disk in the sky? Apart from all them, nobody else has any clones. At least... not yet. 2. CURSES Jason fell in the spring of drowned Akane (it really does exist) Jacen fell in the spring of drowned cute golden retriever puppy Jei-san fell in the spring of the drowned wookie Before he was cloned (or whatever), MadP fell (read: kicked by Ranma) into the spring of drowned girl and then got cloned. Both MadPs have the curse. Kenji fell into the spring of the drowned Kiwi. In his cursed form he's known as Kiwi-chan. This hasn't been seen for a while, since Kenji takes hot baths regularly. Steve2 fell (read: hit by MadP by a smelly fish) into the spring of the drowned pig. His name in piglet form is Sku-chan. Akane thought he was P-chan and found out very quickly that he wasn't. Blade has a rather strange curse. He fell into two different springs - spring of drowned yeti riding bull holding crane and eel combined with the spring of the drowned mecha with optional flight capabilities. His cursed form resembles a large metal minotaur. GRIT RESOURCES -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 1) news:rec.arts.anime.misc The newsgroup where we all vent our collective spleens (if P-Word doesn't already have them) and further the insanity we call the GRIT. You find any latest developments here. 2) http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/2262/hallway.html#GRIT This is my homepage. 3) http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/2222/shed.html This is MadP's homepage. 4) http://www.novia.net/~yotsuya/checkmate.studios/text/ Kenji's text files. 5) ftp://ftp.std.com/archives/anime-fan-works/Ranma/ Here you can find an archived copy of the Trench Wars. And presumably of any future compilations. AFTERWORD -=-=-=-=-=- This is approximately where the current threads are at. If you know something in this guide is wrong then post it or e-mail me and it'll show up in a later version. And yes, we're all insane. Some of our fictional representations have even spent time in asylums. Do you want to get in on the act? Go ahead. Get a bit of a feel for how things go, then jump in and start wreaking havoc. It's how most of us started in the GRIT. Just one small proviso - cut down on the superpowers and powerplaying please. It doesn't get anyone anywhere. THANKS -=-=-=-= First up, many thanks to all the participants who commented on all the stupid little mistakes I'd made in earlier versions. (You know who you are - well okay, I don't have the necessary records to find out exactly who. I can guess Kenji, Jason, Blade, maybe P-Word. Any others?) Special thanks must go to Blade who dug up the post that started it all. Especial thanks must also go to both Tony Chin and Werewolf. After all, they started the whole thing. THE POST THAT STARTED IT ALL -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= All hail the mighty words that brought the GRIT into being: Subject: [Ranma 1/2] Ranma's Best Babe From: Tony Chin Date: 1996/03/22 Message-Id: X-Sender: kchin1@umbc9.umbc.edu Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.manga,rec.arts.anime,alt.fan.r-Takahashi Nntp-Posting-User: kchin1 I'm just writing on who I think is the best girl out of Ranma's choices (I personally think Kasumi the best looking in the series, but the only time she could have been Ranma's choice was the first episode). Ranking 4. Kodachi - Positives: She's rich. Semi-good looking. Negatives: She is insane, Tatewaki's sister, she spikes everything with sleeping potion, and lies. 3. Shampoo - Positives: She's cute and she can cook. Negatives: Her voice. She's too pushy. She won't go away when asked. Wanted to kill anyone in her way. 2. Akane - Positives: She's cute. Always willing to help and she cares. Negatives: Too jealous. Can't cook. Gets upset easy. 1. Ukkyo - Positive: She's cute (looks like a mini kasumi). She can cook. She owns her own business (Ranma can stay at home practicing his martial arts all day and let her earn the money, what more can a guy want!). She's faithful. Negatives: Won't give up on Ranma when he doesn't like her that way (what a fool he is). Clearly, in Ranma's mind, the #1 is Akane. I'm just looking at it at a practical stand point (okay, slightly biased. But there people who would put Shampoo first, go figure). T.C. REVISION HISTORY -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= (AKA The bit that no-one ever reads.) 3.0 Well, I'm calling it 3.0 for there's been a rather big change from v2.1. Name changed from RIT to GRIT. Massive amounts of editing. My pitiful attempts at error correction continue. This revision history stuck down the bottom where it belongs. 2.1 Added info about Tony Chin's initial spark that started the thing. Brought Homecoming arc up to date. 2.0 More minor editing. Honeymooners arc finally finished and its section significantly pruned. Homecoming arc section begun. Other Things part of Points Of Interest section starting to dwindle - it may not be necessary anymore. 1.2: I can't believe it? I forgot about P-word? He's now in there. SKJAM! also put in. Honeymooners arc updated with Sizzler Bob's appearance. Lots of minor editing done. 1.1: It's only 1.1 for I haven't made any huge corrections. Some editing, some obvious oversights corrected, and so on and so forth (as a lecturer of mine is fond to say.) I still have to run a spell-check on the damn thing. Probably still in error. 1.0 : The very first draft. Some things in error. - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - Steven Scougall (s9405963@student.anu.edu.au) (http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/2262/) Until our future pathways cross once more...