Ranma December Questions: (Patreon)

Good evening, my Ranma fans. Apologies for getting this out a few days after I wanted, but I had several days of time I could use on my fanfics, and I was hugely on a roll! I finished like 10,000 words a day, woo. King of Champions6is now done and off to the editor, although judging by the answers people gave to my HP questions, part of the chapter might annoy its readers LOL. Similarly, Semblance of Hope will be finished and sent off by tomorrow night. It’s an episode sized, but that will let me time to concentrate on the small story winner. After that will be the patron only winner.

Anyway, as mentioned for those of you who didn’t immediately turn away from seeing the (HP Only) tag, This is this month’s Ranma-centric questions. Amusingly though, I honestly only have questions about Stallion of the Line. I had a handful of others, but most deal with events too far in the future for a few of the fics, and others deal with fics that aren’t in the story rotation yet. Putting them in would feel too much like teasing you all, the same kind of thinking that kept me from putting Heroes of the High Seas into the present rotation.

So…

1. I have already determined that the Marines will be bringing in more officers and admirals than were involved in the canon War of the Best. I have looked at the marine with the strange robot arm from the movies, Zoro’s friend and the marines from the Fifth movie (I think it’s the fifth? The one with the demon sword).  But I am wondering what the meteor user – the blind swordsman- and his fellow newbie were doing at this point?

2. There are two characters whose reaction to events in the war I am having trouble with: Mihawk and Doffy.

a. Would Mihawk fight to the last for the marines even if he can see that they are losing or if their plans go awry before the first shot is even fired? Or would he cut his loses and retreat, and if so, when?

b. Similarly I have to wonder about Doffy. If the battle doesn’t go down at Marineford like planned, would he simply leave? If the Marines demanded it, would he bend and bring along his crew to add their firepower? And if the battle does turn, when would he try to take advantage, near the end of the battle or the instant he senses the marines might lose? Would he just leave, or join in on beating the marines?

3. Are there any other pirates that could theoretically be lifted to Shichibukai status that you would like to see involved in this war? You all can include pirates not introduced at this point in canon, pirates allied with one of the Yonko or from the movies. I’ve shown previously I am not going to turn my nose up at movie-only characters.

4. While I know that he truly joined the crew in canon, I am debating on letting Jinbei and his crew become the third allied group of Raffy’s forces. This way I can bring him in occasionally, he remains an ally, and yet isn’t a main character, letting me concentrate further on the main characters. Thoughts?

5. Usopp. Should he join the crew? Or, better, become part of Jinbei’s crew and thus an ally? I… REALLLY do not like his character in some ways before the timeskip. After, he is much better, but even then, I don’t know if he would fit in with the crew as is. And I think he would have as many issues with Raffy as Nami has had in the past occasionally.