Random Ideas discussion (Patreon)

So, recently I looked back at the Highschool of the Dead and crossover section. It had been a year or so, I figured there might be a few new good stories there. But while there were, there was a lot of stories that were just crap. While I don’t read them, I have no issue with writers creating OCs and using them in stories. But seriously, creating a whole new cast some of whom are American, and then writing the story as if it’s occurring in the same setting as the original? Why?  What’s the point of that?  And, a familiar refrain, WHY SO MUCH NARUTO!!!?!!?!!?!? And those few stories I thought looked good hadn’t been updated in months. 

So while doing that, I looked at my own story, and came to the conclusion that I also made a number of large mistakes:

1. The big one: lack of survival type drama. With Ranma’s skills and strengths the regular zombies, even in large amounts did not really cause any stress whenever he was involved. Worse still, even Ranma’s survival skills - particularly his ability to roofhop, made things far too easy. If I ever go back into this section, this problem needs to be solved somehow, either by giving the zombies power ups or taking skills away somehow from Ranma.

2. Adding too many characters took away from concentrating on a few of them - this is sort of important since the small size of the main cast was a major draw for me, then I went and ruined it. Again part of this was because of Ranma’s skills and character - saving Kyoko, befriending Yuuki, his mother and then Kiriko, but it really took away from the other characters. In particular Takashi, Rei and to a lesser extent Kouta and Shizuka. Again this problem needs to be solved, either by not using some of the cast entirely or not adding new characters.

3. I was wedded too much to the idea of showing all the settings canon used: the mall, the Takagi estate, even Rika’s place. In some ways that’s okay, but in others it did sort of force me to follow a set route. 

4. The group both decided to and did leave the city too quickly - yes this made a lot of sense, yes it was a good plan long term, but it again took away the real drama of surviving against the horde of undead. 

I had a few ideas for this crossover genre before, but looking back on them now, they don’t really pass any of the above criteria as they are. So I came up with two entirely different ideas:

High School, the Next Great Adventure, a Harry Potter and HOTD crossover: 

Harry Potter, wishful to leave the fame of the Boy Who Lived behind him, decides to leave Britain, aided by the surviving Weasleys minus Ginny who is still very much after him, and Hermione, who knows how much he hates fame. He settles on Japan, which is a closed community, the Japanese magical society having been able to fend off the rest of the world’s magicals attempts to make them conform, but having retreated all the same into anonymity. 

Once there he is immediately accosted and told as a foreigner he must agree to have his magic bound while learning the local ways - not so much as a real attempt to control him, but as an attempt to scare him off. The Japanese magical community is even more standoffish than the rest of the country when it comes to gaijin. But he agrees to it, and is bound after being taught the local language. He decides normality is precisely what he wants at this point, and randomly decides on a high school to go to.

The school is Fujimi Academy and he arrives as a freshman several months before the start of HOTD canon. The cover story for his age would be that he had been involved in a car accident that put him in a coma for several years, and then decided to get away from his old home and people who had moved on with their lives. When the zombies show up he realizes that normality just isn’t in the cards for him, and that maybe he should have figured out a way around the whole magically bound thing…

Things this fic would contain:

1. This Harry will be a good deal more canon compliant at least at first than I ever normally do at first, just so everyone knows. However some long term… issues will develop over time, lol

2. Muggle Harry: For a time, Harry will be unable to use magic, having to rely instead on his wits and reflexes. Eventually this will change, but at first he will have a very hard time of it, just like all the others.

3. Non-canon events: I would not be following any of the canon events except perhaps the stopover at Rika’s place and saving Alice. I could possibly even see to saving her father. 

4. Getting to the bottom of things: Harry will be able to tell this outbreak is magical in origin. In the long term he will work to try to find out how to solve it. 

5. Character cameos: Instead of having to add characters to the core group, I would show small cameo moments of other characters dealing with the undead, both HP and HOTD characters.

6. Shido is small change - in the manga he causes issues several times, but here, not so much

7. Possible eventual master of death: there will be repercussions caused by Harry having his magic sealed and still being in possession of the three Deathly Hollows - no he would not be putting the Wand or ring in Dumbledore’s crypt or whatever he did in canon. 

8. Awesome Takashi - Takashi would not only be Harry’s friend at first but would also step up to the bat as a leader faster than he did in canon. Indeed this would be the first story where I will genuinely try to have two male leads.

9. Different core group: I have no idea what I would change here, but I would be changing things just to make the survival portion of the story different on it’s own.

Pairings: 

Harry/Saya/Shizuka. Instead of Saeko saving Shizuka Harry would, along with Saya who he has befriended thanks to teaching her English in return for classes on computers. The three of them would try to leave school immediately, never even meeting up with the others just yet. Harry and Saya would have begun flirting before the zombie outbreak, while Shizuka just thinks his green eyes are too cute for words. 

Other pairings would probably develop over time, but at first it will be just these three, leaving in Shizuka’s tiny car as soon as they can. This will have an impact on everyone else from canon of course…

Needless to say this fic would need more work, but the basic premise is there.

An Aunt’s touch (temp title), a Ranma 1/2 and HOTD crossover:

While drunk off his gourd after dealing with the onset of his son’s puberty Genma instead of using the Penitent Monk technique (used in several of my other fics to explain Ranma’s lack of libido) he attempts to put the boy through the neko-ken again. Needless to say this ends in failure, and Genma is badly mauled, able to only watch Ranma jumping off once more caught in it’s madness. Eventually the boy comes out of it after sleeping, but he is found by a policeman who looks at his injuries and takes him in. 

The police use Ranma’s last name to see if they can find any other kin. They can’t contact Nodoka for various reasons (debtors having come calling already at this point she is living off the grid almost as much as Ranma and Genma) but find out that Genma had a sister who changed her last name and is one of their own: Rika Minami. 

Furious at what she has discovered about Ranma’s training just by talking to him, Rika demands and gets custody of Ranma, who is happy to have another relative and thinks his policewoman aunt is the coolest person ever. Rika in turn thinks Genma was insane, but that the boy has a lot of potential. Then when he shows up Rika nearly shoots Genma only to watch as he dodges the bullet judging from the angle of her gun barrel. 

The story will evolve from there and will be much slower than the other story I wrote: several chapters will be devoted to the background and buildup to meeting the rest of the HOTD cast. Rika and Genma would clash several times, and Rika would have to hunt Ranma and Genma down when Genma is successfully bale to convince the boy to come with him. She will have her hands full trying to solve the various issues Genma has already ‘programed’ into Ranma: lack of knowledge, social cluelessness and other things. 

Eventually she will however convince him that he needs to start taking school seriously and sends him to Fujimi Academy, which will have both middle and high school, where her live-in lover can look after the boy. “After all Shizuka already treats the boy like a live teddy bear already.”

Ranma will arrive at school at the beginning of the school year, which is around the time that Rei and Takashi have their initial falling out. Ranma will have views on that, but will have already met Rei through her father and Rika. 

Things this fic will contain:

1. Lots of background/buildup before the zombies show up: first shown in montages over the first few years of Rika and Ranma’s relationship followed by at least two chapters of stuff happening in the months directly before the zombies. I could have a lot of fun with Rika and Genma interacting and arguing about Ranma, along with his interaction with Rika and general cluelessness. Plus a few moments of sheer bawdy humor as Ranma gets used to living with two adult women who have no idea in turn about looking after a kid. So it would be at least three, possibly four chapters of 15,000 words or so before the zombies show up.

2. Characters fleshed out: This is a major draw of starting a crossover so many months before the zombies, I can take the time to truly delve into the different characters. In particular Rika and Shizuka and Ranma of course.

3. Cursed Ranma!!!! - yes this will occur - one of Genma’s schemes to get Ranma to go with him, won’t say more than that. But will it be the same curse? HOHOHOHOHO.

4. Younger Ranma: Ranma will be at best 15, two years younger than most of the other characters, around the age he is shown in the flashbacks when he first met Ryoga. This will make him weaker than in canon Ranma let alone my Horse of the dead fic. He’ll still be able to handle the zombies, but won’t be a leader as much as in that fic, nor as dangerous - the zombies will still be a threat to him. 

5. No KI. While Ranma will still heal and be tougher, stronger than most anyone near his own age, he won’t have conscious access to ki.

6. Different core group: I will be playing around with the initial breakout from the school in this fic too, since using the same starting point would be boring. Then too, it was random events and the need to come together at the teachers’ office that brought the initial group all together. Change that a bit and…

7. Ukyo: By this point Ukyo will have been chasing after Ranma but will in no way be after him after they meet up once more.  

8. Non-canon events: While again using Rika’s apartment as a stopover makes a lot of sense, so does the idea of making it a permanent base. That means no set trip to Saya’s or the mall.

9. Fighting it out: there will be more inter-group troubles at various points. On top of that Ranma and the others will not be trying to abandon the city any time soon.

10. Shido gets his: Ranma will put Shido in his place either right away or soon after.

11. Redeemed Genma: perhaps in a series of cameos I would attempt to redeem Genma as I somewhat have done in Anything Goes Game changer.

12. Ranma will have an interest in girls: He will know what he likes, but just won’t know what to do with that knowledge.   So there will be some slow burn ecchi fun, but it will be much slower to build up to full on lemons than my first foray into this world.

13. Tying into the above: crazy Nodoka. As in “Good gods she has names picked out for all her grandbabies, all eighty of them” kind of crazy. Seen this in a few parodies/comedies, and would like to play with it myself.

14. Uncertain what I would do with Kohta and Saya in this fic. A lot of this fic is of course still up in the air. Removing Kohta’s skills somehow while letting Saya live could really make surviving harder, so that’s a plus for that idea. But do I think this Ranma and this Saya would get along? 

Pairings:

 Takashi/Ukyo - Ranma will have rather bluntly pointed out that waiting for Rei to look at him was stupid and really pathetic (Ranma and Takashi will not get along very well at first), and Takashi will have been the first one to tell Ukyo she was cute, even if she dressed up as a boy. The two of them don’t even meet up with the rest of the group at all.

 Rika/Shizuka - frankly I think this could be an OTP given how at home Shizuka was in Rika’s apartment and how devoted they seemed to one another. 

Ranma/Saeko/Rei - Saeko will have developed an interest in Ranma before the zombies show up, though being three years older is a hindrance to her approaching him. This Rei will be very different than in canon, but will still break up with Takashi for Hizashi. Rei will have developed a sort of at times confrontational little brother-big sister relationship with Ranma before the zombies over martial arts and what Rei calls ‘Real Life Instruction’, and he grabs her and dipshit (Ranma’s name for Hizashi, since he blames him more than Rei for going behind Takashi’s back) and gets them out of the classroom. Hizashi, no longer the captain of the karate team thanks to Ranma being pushed into the roll tries to go unarmed like Ranma only to fail miserably. These relationships would be very turbulent and filled with ecchi fun and more than a bit of comedy/drama and other girls might be added in the future.

I am not certain I would be willing to write up either of these in a full teaser chapter, they were thought up more as a response to the horrible state of affairs in this fandom as I said at the start. But if we reach the next goal once more I would be willing to include them in the poll for which teaser chapter you would all like to see.