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treebornekettlegirl
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treebornekettlegirlCHARACTER INFO
Character: Ranma Saotome
Canon: Ranma 1/2, at the end of the Jusendo/Saffron arc in the manga
Age: 17
Background Information: Wiki Page (Note: The wiki is mostly based off the anime interpretation of Ranma where some things were changed such as what age Ranma started training and downplaying Ranma's jerkish tendencies, while my Ranma is a combination of manga and anime personality and ability wise.)
First Arc
Final Arc
(Note: There is potential CW for discussions of trauma and suicide mention. I will be sure to tag sections that bring it up when it's necessary.)
Personality:
1) Tell us about who your character is and what someone’s first impression would be upon meeting them.
Depending on one's own attitude when meeting Ranma for the first time, it determines how he responds in kind. When threatened or insulted for little reason, Ranma retorts with his own dry snark, teasing and gibes, giving off the impression of an immature and rude teen. Which isn't entirely unfounded since he can be exactly that. When neither threatened or insulted, Ranma is usually chill and friendly to just about most people he meets, if having a tendency to put his foot in his mouth occasionally and say the wrong thing without thinking first.
For all of his childhood, Ranma spent most of it away from society traveling the world, doing nothing but train with little contact to other people besides his father, Genma Saotome. Who himself can be described as a selfish and prickly man, nor was he the best father to Ranma, caring only for his own ambitions of making Ranma a worthy heir to the Anything Goes Martial Arts school and a 'man among men' as he promised to Ranma's mother. He was also a greedy man who was willing to do anything to get what he wanted, willing to use his son as a bargaining chip and sell his hand in marriage without Ranma's knowledge until years later when he's forced to deal with his father's past dealings for him. All of these engagements were done not to help Ranma, but for Genma's own wanton greed, even petty things such as food and a dowry, and was responsible for a lot of Ranma's current issues like his curse.
Between living a childhood that consisted of nothing but training and violence, not having many kids his own age to talk to during this time, and constantly being dragged into his father's harebrained schemes, Ranma's emotional and social development suffered as a result and treats a lot of the misgivings he's been through as a mild annoyance. He's prideful, petty, secretive, sarcastic, sly, argumentative with anyone that annoys or upset him, and has all the tact of a chainsaw. Despite having all the social cues of a brick wall however, Ranma remains a good guy who'll get easily attached to people who are nice to him, doing anything he can to help anyone in need, even extending to several enemies who moments ago have tried to hurt or kill him, and is quick to take responsibility for things whether or not they're his fault or someone else's.
2) What is a driving force your character has? What goals do they have, what motivates them, etc? (CW: Suicide/seppuku mention in sixth paragraph)
Martial arts is everything to Ranma. He lives and breaths fighting, it's in his blood. There's never a second that goes by that Ranma isn't training to better his craft. If there's an opportunity for him to learn something new, no matter how ridiculous or outlandish the style may be or even if he needs to use his curse to perform it, Ranma'll leap head first to take on the challenge. Any time Ranma loses a fight, he'll stop at nothing to better himself and grow as a fighter.
With his occupation as a martial artist, there's also the matter of the honors he follows. Ranma believes it is the duty of a martial artist to stand in the face of danger to keep innocent people out of harms way, and that the strong should protect and help the weak. He hates people that needlessly bully those that can't fight back, mess with people for the hell of it or are unnecessarily cruel after they've already won, stepping in to make them back off without a second thought. Likewise, there are restrictions he puts on himself that he follows even if his opponents never show the same sentiment, such as holding back against weaker foes in order to not seriously harm them. Ranma'll never try to severely maim a foe that could leave them permanently unable to fight or live normally (i.e. breaking their legs, blinding them, removing parts of their body, etc.) or try to kill his foes unless it is absolutely necessary and all other options have been spent.
There was only one time when Ranma had to break these sacred vows, against Saffron in the final arc. It was during this time that Ranma was on a time limit to save someone (Akane) dear to him after all the water was evaporated from her body, only having a limited amount of time to get her help before she closed her eyes and died. Saffron kept getting in the way with the sole purpose of stopping him from saving Akane, and after assuring himself that there was no other way, Ranma set aside those vows and killed Saffron by slicing off his wings and shattering the Phoenix King. That being said, this time is rendered moot by the fact Saffron was a phoenix, an immortal being that's reborn as a baby after death, which most likely had a factor on making the decision to kill Saffron a lot easier for the martial artist.
Ranma's main motivation besides following his honor and improving his martial arts is finding a way to cure his curse. Over the time of having his curse and being in Nerima, Ranma went from despising his curse to embracing it for all its perks and advantages to tolerating it, but never accepting it. Because he can't accept that it'll be something he has to live with all his life, and that he'll never be able to fully become a man as long as it remains with him. His curse had caused him a lot of heartache and trouble because of it:
It messed with the first time he met Akane where they actually got along while he was a girl, even becoming friends. Right up until Akane found out that Ranma was a boy after walking in on him in the bath, becoming quick to call him a freak and degenerate, something that put a strain on their relationship at the start. Ranma's curse attracted unwanted attraction and advances from men that want the 'pigtailed girl' to themselves, from Tatewaki Kuno, an upperclassman of Ranma who cannot tell the two Ranmas are one and the same, and Mikado Sanzenin, a concupiscent figure skater who stole Ranma's first kiss while he was in his cursed form and genuinely upset the martial artist to the point he ran off a crying mess. Some cases, it nearly got him killed several times due to people despising the 'redheaded girl' such as Kodachi Kuno, who is an inverse of her brother who is attracted to male Ranma and hates female Ranma without being able to put two and two together.
It even messed with his chances of seeing his mother again, due to a 'man among men' pledge Genma made him sign as a baby stating that should Ranma fail to live up to his mother's expectations of him, all three of them would be forced to commit seppuku. Because of this, Ranma had to hide himself from her whenever she came by, pretending to be Akane's female cousin 'Ranko Tendo', causing him so much grief to have his mother so close but just out of reach. Even after she found out about his curse and didn't count it as an automatic failure, the pledge is still held over his head. After all the hardships, all the grief, all the turmoil and trouble its caused him, it shouldn't be all that surprising that he'd still want it gone. No matter how beneficial his curse had helped him with improving upon his martial arts, no matter how being cursed humbled him and knocked his pride down a few pegs, no matter how many times Ranma says he's fine with dealing with it, anytime there's an opportunity, the slimmest chance Ranma can get it cured, he takes it.
3) What are their flaws as a character? What is something they've messed up, or have done that they regret?
As the old adage goes, "pride goeth before a fall". Ranma prides himself on a lot of things. His skills as a martial artist, his looks, his manhood, etc. Any insult or gibe to him pushes his buttons and rattles him into retaliation, in the form of bickering, fighting, etc. Ranma is a very vain individual, caring a lot about what others see and perceive in him, even going as far as to use his curse as a crutch just to spare himself any possible embarrassment as a guy. I.e. changing into a girl to eat ice cream since he thinks its unmanly to eat sweets, changing during when he was learning to figure skating since 'figure skating's just too embarrassing as a guy', etc.
On top of this, Ranma lives by a motto: "Ranma Saotome never backs down". If there's a fight to win or a goal he's set out to do, he'll stubbornly push on to accomplish it. While such resilience is a respectable trait to have, it's also been a detriment to him and others at time. There's been times when Ranma severely neglected his own well-being and health just to prepare himself for a fight, almost starving himself one time in order to learn the Parlay du Foie Gras. Another example would be when Gosunkugi, a minor rival, donned a battle armor that he couldn't take off until he lands a punch on his enemy (Ranma). Even when the suit openly announced it would self-detonate in five minutes if a punch wasn't made, which would've blown the two of them up, Ranma still wouldn't let Gosunkugi punch him all because he didn't want to lose the fight.
In tandem with Ranma's pride, there's also the matter of his impulsiveness. Ranma's more of a 'on the fly' sort of thinker, coming up with solution and plans as he's living in the moment. Much like his pride and stubbornness, while this had gotten him out of predicaments and lets him show off his guile, it also comes with a consequence. That being Ranma doesn't think about the consequences and how they affect him or others. Ranma's impulsiveness (in part with pride) has lead to him challenging opponents without being able to stand against them or is quick to underestimate them.
With impulsiveness also comes selfishness. While Ranma's normally selfless and eager to help people, there's been times when he let his own avarice get the better of him. Especially when it comes to the possibility of curing his curse. The moment a potential cure presents itself, Ranma leaps for it without making sure there's even a bottom to land. When he heard that whoever gave the best performance in Furinkan High's play of Romeo and Juliet would win an opportunity to see China (where he believed a potential cure could be), he immediately jumped in for his own selfish goals, even though he knew that the play was important to Akane. Needless to say, he ended up making a mess of the play and was quick to discover that the 'see China' reward was to meet an actor named China, not an actual trip. So his actions were all for nothing in the end, something he never accounted for because all he could think of was getting what he wanted.
If you were to ask Ranma what his biggest fear is, he'd laugh and tell you that he's afraid of nothing. This would be a bold face lie. Ranma has ailurophobia, the extreme fear of cats. It all stemmed from when he was six years old, where Genma decided to put his son through a training exercise,'Neko-ken (Cat Fu)', he discovered in an old martial arts manual. The training was done by wrapping the practitioner in salty foods like fish sausages, before throwing them into a dark pit. This very pit contained hundreds upon hundreds of starved, feral cats that pounce the moment they smell the food, fighting over each other and doing anything to get the food tied to the boy's body, with no care or mercy to what happens to the body. Every time the young Ranma would climb out of the pit bloodied, clawed to hell and back and terrified, Genma would tie more salted meats and throw his son back inside over and over and over in an attempt to 'fix his fear' and desensitize him to the cats. It, unsurprisingly, did not help and only made it worse.
The entire experience left Ranma deeply scarred with a trauma of cats. Even the tiniest, fluffiest, sweetest little kitten will leave Ranma a screaming mess scrambling to get as far away from it as possible. If surrounded or near cats, Ranma can try to hold himself together, but his mental stability hangs on a thread throughout it, teetering on an edge. And should Ranma's trauma and fear tip over the edge, Ranma'll enter the Neko-ken. More on that in abilities.
4) Optional: What is something unique and interesting about them, or what is a fun little tidbit that sets them apart from the crowd?
To reach Jusenkyo, Ranma and his father didn't take a boat or ship or anything of the sort to get to China. They swam the sea of Japan all the way there. Not only that, but they actually managed to survive the harsh waves of Japan's seas and arrive in China, where they hiked up the mountain holding the cursed spring grounds that Ranma acquired his curse from.
Abilities & Inventory:
Note: For his tattoo, Ranma will be asking for a taijitu (or mostly known as yin-yang) symbol of the light element. This should give him back his full abilities, with the necessary nerfs in place should there be any required.
For all of Ranma's life, Ranma was put through the wringer in order to hone his abilities, becoming borderline superhuman and capable of performing feats not easily done by most ordinary people.
-Superhuman Strength: Ranma has been shown being able to lift and shatter items larger than himself with just a punch such as walls, boulders, etc. His best displays of strength include swimming underwater with a boulder hundreds times his size and shoving it into the mouth of an eight-headed Orochi (aka this). Seconds later holding the Orochi's mouth open with his bare hands by the tooth to keep it from closing. Miscellaneous feats would also include punching the air hard enough for the air to strike foes and has been shown capable of using his hands to slice things such as walls.
-Superhuman Agility: Speed is what Ranma excels at best. He's capable of moving faster than what the human eye can perceive, able to leap several stories high in the air, cling onto ceilings like a cat and zip around like a blur. When strength fails, speed and acrobatics more than makes up for it, being able to throw hundreds of punches and kicks so fast that it looks like he only threw one punch/kick. One time he struck an opponent 518 times while spinning in under a couple seconds. This was before he underwent speed training for various speed-boosting techniques. After training in techniques meant for increasing striking speed such as the Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken, Parlay du Foie Gras, and Hakuda Toshin Shō, Ranma's capable of throwing thousands of punches and kicks fast enough for his arms and legs to become bright blurs.
-Superhuman Durability: Tough cookie doesn't even begin to describe Ranma. He's been smashed into a wall hard enough that all his bones should've been rendered to dust, blown up several times at point blank, scorched by flames hot enough to incinerate a portion of a mountain, fell from thousands of feet and more, all sort of things that'd kill most people that he's walked off like its nothing. That being said, he's not completely impervious to damage as he's been slashed and stabbed, broken bones, poisoned, paralyzed, etc.
NERF: For RP sake, Ranma's capabilities will be dialed back to what is reasonably allowed for this game.
Fighting is Ranma's everything. He lives it, he breathes it, he knows the inner workings of it. Ranma specializes in a family made style known as 'Anything Goes Martial Arts', a style revolving around adaptability and mastery over any and all fighting styles and techniques, on top of specializing in air control and combat. Karate, kung fu, aikido, kendo, if there's a fighting style or technique out there you can think of, chances are Ranma's got it down to a science. Likewise, the world of Ranma also bears various styles of martial arts you wouldn't dream of being possible, such as Martial Arts Cheerleading, Martial Arts Figure Skating, Martial Arts Dining, you get the picture. And whenever there's a new form of fighting to be learnt, you can beat Ranma'll learn it in a flash, picking up how techniques work such as the Umi-Sen Ken having it used on him once.
Adept at figuring techniques and styles in seconds, Ranma relies on unpredictability in combat, always being on his toes and not letting his opponents guess his next moves, all while formulating his own plan and strategy at the same time. Hand-to-hand isn't the only type of fighting he does either. He's studied in knowing where any and all pressure points are on the human body to strike. And if he gets his hands on something, he'll use it in battle. Swords, staffs, knives, flails, whips, to even more unorthodox and improvised weapons as spoons, boulders, hair, tables, actual people, etc. In general, Ranma depends on being an all-round fighter, not sticking to one style or art form.
After falling into the cursed spring Nyannīchuan (Spring of Drowned Girl), Ranma is now cursed to swap genders every time he is doused with water, or anything that would contain water such as soda or tea. Cold water triggers the curse, turning him into a small redheaded girl, while hot water (or steam could work too) reverses it and changes him back to normal. The changes are usually instantaneous, over just as quickly as Ranma got wet in the first place. It has to be splashed or doused on him or touch his outer skin, as it's been shown via one cursed character drinking straight from a kettle of hot water that drinking water doesn't trigger the curse. Another thing to note is those cursed by Jusenkyo usually attract water or scenarios where they're more likely to get wet, such as random buckets of water appearing inconveniently to splash on them, water pipes are more likely to burst when they're around, if drinking water from a bottle, that bottle is more likely to spill on them, etc.
'Battle aura', in reality ki, is a form of energy manipulation fighters in Ranma 1/2 have mastery over that they're able to bring out and use in ways to better their fighting. Such as using ki to further improve durability, using ki to speed up the healing time on damages done (anything serious like a broken bone does take longer to heal, around a week or so), sense danger, ki pockets (basically hammerspace) to hold items (roughly about 3 items in Ranma's case, these being items small enough for him to hold on himself such as a book, water pistol or kettle for example) in, etc. Ranma has good control over his ki, with it occasionally seeping out and surrounding him in the form of a flame-esque aura when he feels a strong emotion, the color depending on his current emotions, such as blue for confidence or joy, or red for anger. Apart from the basic ki abilities, there's also ones specific to Ranma himself.
(With the light elemental tattoo, Ranma's ki control is improved significantly. Changes/improvement include:
- Ki healing now lets him use it on others to heal their injuries and wounds. The severity of the wounds factors into how much ki he uses (i.e. scrapes and bruises take minimum effort to heal up, cuts and stabs take a good bit to use, severe burns and broken bones require a lot of ki to be put into healing). If Ranma overdoes it and continuously heals people without giving himself a moment to rest and recharge, it'll significantly hinder his ability to fight and put him at risk of losing consciousness. Ki healing also only works on physical injuries. Afflictions such as illnesses, infections, and curses cannot be cured in this way.
- Ki pocket now allows for five small items to be held, or he can forgo all of them in favor of pocketing one large item (within reason, nothing insanely big like a whole building) in his ki such as a sword or chest.)
A ki beam ability made specifically by Ranma himself, firing a golden beam of pure energy and ki at his foes. Fueled by Ranma's pride, the Mōko Takabisha gets stronger and bigger the more confident Ranma is in himself. The beam can be fired from one hand, two hands, or even two beams fired at the same time by one hand each, with no cool down or charge up required, letting Ranma fire one after the other as long as he stays confident. Lucky for him that he has confidence in spades.
A technique Ranma uses to both suppress his emotions, and let off cold ki from his body. When undergoing this technique, all of Ranma's emotions and feelings are null and void to the point he could be compared to a lifeless corpse. This results in Ranma's body exuding a cold ki, dropping the temperatures around Ranma down to a cold degree. While initially learnt in order to suppress his pride and embarrassment for something he didn't want to do, this technique is vital in two abilities Ranma possesses.
The first technique would be the Umi-Sen Ken. Created by Ranma's father intending on being a counter to another technique 'Yama-Sen Ken', the user is able to mask their ki to hide their presence, disappearing from view and allowing them to stealth around their opponent. The downside to this is Ranma must remain calm and collected during this. If even the slightest bit of emotion slips through, the mask is broken and he'll be exposed. It also isn't possible to attack during this state as any attack breaks it as well. That, and after its initial use, Ranma vowed to never use it again since A. Something like that makes battles cheap and unfair, and B. The original creation for the technique wasn't for martial arts, but for petty burglary, making the actual technique feel dishonorable for him to use in a fight.
The second technique is the Hiryū Shōten Ha, being Ranma's strongest moves yet intended as a finishing move. Ranma goads the opponent into attacking him with taunts, jabs, anything to make them flare up and get angry. All the while dodging in a spiral, leading his foe on while also using the Soul of Ice technique to let out his cold ki. Once at the crux of the spiral Ranma lead them in, the hot energy from the attacking foe and the cold ki from Ranma clash and collide and Ranma initiates a punch, resulting in a tornado that returns a foes' strength and power back at them, effectively acting as a counter that hits a foe with their own power.
Of course, this being Ranma's most powerful technique, after being seen, it can be easily avoided once a foe knows how it works. Which is why Ranma's had to become creative and adapt, finding ways to use it in the event he needs to and the first option doesn't work. At the end of the Jusendo arc during his final battle with Saffron, Ranma was able to use the Hiryū Shōten Ha from the scorching hot flames and a small path of cold air the he mixed with his own cold ki.
As stated in flaws, Ranma is deathly ailurophobic, unable to handle being around cats for too long due to his fear of them. Should this fear ever come to a head, Ranma loses himself and snaps, just as the Neko-ken intended. The idea behind the 'technique' was making the practitioner fight with the grace, speed and power of a cat. In this state, Ranma's mental state becomes that of a feral cat, zipping and bouncing at fast speeds and 'clawing' anything and anyone in sight with the use of air pressure from the swipes to cut and slash, being able to cut through tree, concrete, and solid chunks of ice.
Despite this, there's one giant drawback: The Neko-ken isn't a technique, it's induced psychosis. There was a reason why, as Genma found out after subjecting his son through the training, it was banned: Psychological distress, and that anyone who'd willing teach it is an idiot. When in this state, Ranma's mind mentally becomes that of a cat, losing all cognitive and humanly intellect in place of a feral creature running on instinct. Ranma loses all strategizing, all cognitive plaining, everything a martial artist should have during a fight. He's literally a feral creature, able to be distracted by simply throwing something and yelling 'fetch', behaving entirely like a cat would (yowling, clawing up a tree like a scratch post, etc.)
There's only a few ways to snap Ranma out of his state of galeanthropy. First being is him falling asleep in the lap of someone he trusts such as an old woman and Akane. The second, and more practical of the two is simply dumping water on him, jolting him out of the state. Either one snaps him out of it, unable to remember what happened during this state. Like it's been mentioned in flaws, Ranma is able to resist the fear and doesn't immediately snap into the Nekoken state just at the mere sight of a cat. It'll only happen if the fear reaches an unbearable level.
Inventory- Nothing but the clothes on his back has been brought with him. These being a red silk Tangzhuang shirt, black pants, slip-on flats and a tanktop he wears as an undershirt.
Canon: Ranma 1/2, at the end of the Jusendo/Saffron arc in the manga
Age: 17
Background Information: Wiki Page (Note: The wiki is mostly based off the anime interpretation of Ranma where some things were changed such as what age Ranma started training and downplaying Ranma's jerkish tendencies, while my Ranma is a combination of manga and anime personality and ability wise.)
First Arc
Final Arc
(Note: There is potential CW for discussions of trauma and suicide mention. I will be sure to tag sections that bring it up when it's necessary.)
Personality:
1) Tell us about who your character is and what someone’s first impression would be upon meeting them.
Depending on one's own attitude when meeting Ranma for the first time, it determines how he responds in kind. When threatened or insulted for little reason, Ranma retorts with his own dry snark, teasing and gibes, giving off the impression of an immature and rude teen. Which isn't entirely unfounded since he can be exactly that. When neither threatened or insulted, Ranma is usually chill and friendly to just about most people he meets, if having a tendency to put his foot in his mouth occasionally and say the wrong thing without thinking first.
For all of his childhood, Ranma spent most of it away from society traveling the world, doing nothing but train with little contact to other people besides his father, Genma Saotome. Who himself can be described as a selfish and prickly man, nor was he the best father to Ranma, caring only for his own ambitions of making Ranma a worthy heir to the Anything Goes Martial Arts school and a 'man among men' as he promised to Ranma's mother. He was also a greedy man who was willing to do anything to get what he wanted, willing to use his son as a bargaining chip and sell his hand in marriage without Ranma's knowledge until years later when he's forced to deal with his father's past dealings for him. All of these engagements were done not to help Ranma, but for Genma's own wanton greed, even petty things such as food and a dowry, and was responsible for a lot of Ranma's current issues like his curse.
Between living a childhood that consisted of nothing but training and violence, not having many kids his own age to talk to during this time, and constantly being dragged into his father's harebrained schemes, Ranma's emotional and social development suffered as a result and treats a lot of the misgivings he's been through as a mild annoyance. He's prideful, petty, secretive, sarcastic, sly, argumentative with anyone that annoys or upset him, and has all the tact of a chainsaw. Despite having all the social cues of a brick wall however, Ranma remains a good guy who'll get easily attached to people who are nice to him, doing anything he can to help anyone in need, even extending to several enemies who moments ago have tried to hurt or kill him, and is quick to take responsibility for things whether or not they're his fault or someone else's.
2) What is a driving force your character has? What goals do they have, what motivates them, etc? (CW: Suicide/seppuku mention in sixth paragraph)
Martial arts is everything to Ranma. He lives and breaths fighting, it's in his blood. There's never a second that goes by that Ranma isn't training to better his craft. If there's an opportunity for him to learn something new, no matter how ridiculous or outlandish the style may be or even if he needs to use his curse to perform it, Ranma'll leap head first to take on the challenge. Any time Ranma loses a fight, he'll stop at nothing to better himself and grow as a fighter.
With his occupation as a martial artist, there's also the matter of the honors he follows. Ranma believes it is the duty of a martial artist to stand in the face of danger to keep innocent people out of harms way, and that the strong should protect and help the weak. He hates people that needlessly bully those that can't fight back, mess with people for the hell of it or are unnecessarily cruel after they've already won, stepping in to make them back off without a second thought. Likewise, there are restrictions he puts on himself that he follows even if his opponents never show the same sentiment, such as holding back against weaker foes in order to not seriously harm them. Ranma'll never try to severely maim a foe that could leave them permanently unable to fight or live normally (i.e. breaking their legs, blinding them, removing parts of their body, etc.) or try to kill his foes unless it is absolutely necessary and all other options have been spent.
There was only one time when Ranma had to break these sacred vows, against Saffron in the final arc. It was during this time that Ranma was on a time limit to save someone (Akane) dear to him after all the water was evaporated from her body, only having a limited amount of time to get her help before she closed her eyes and died. Saffron kept getting in the way with the sole purpose of stopping him from saving Akane, and after assuring himself that there was no other way, Ranma set aside those vows and killed Saffron by slicing off his wings and shattering the Phoenix King. That being said, this time is rendered moot by the fact Saffron was a phoenix, an immortal being that's reborn as a baby after death, which most likely had a factor on making the decision to kill Saffron a lot easier for the martial artist.
Ranma's main motivation besides following his honor and improving his martial arts is finding a way to cure his curse. Over the time of having his curse and being in Nerima, Ranma went from despising his curse to embracing it for all its perks and advantages to tolerating it, but never accepting it. Because he can't accept that it'll be something he has to live with all his life, and that he'll never be able to fully become a man as long as it remains with him. His curse had caused him a lot of heartache and trouble because of it:
It messed with the first time he met Akane where they actually got along while he was a girl, even becoming friends. Right up until Akane found out that Ranma was a boy after walking in on him in the bath, becoming quick to call him a freak and degenerate, something that put a strain on their relationship at the start. Ranma's curse attracted unwanted attraction and advances from men that want the 'pigtailed girl' to themselves, from Tatewaki Kuno, an upperclassman of Ranma who cannot tell the two Ranmas are one and the same, and Mikado Sanzenin, a concupiscent figure skater who stole Ranma's first kiss while he was in his cursed form and genuinely upset the martial artist to the point he ran off a crying mess. Some cases, it nearly got him killed several times due to people despising the 'redheaded girl' such as Kodachi Kuno, who is an inverse of her brother who is attracted to male Ranma and hates female Ranma without being able to put two and two together.
It even messed with his chances of seeing his mother again, due to a 'man among men' pledge Genma made him sign as a baby stating that should Ranma fail to live up to his mother's expectations of him, all three of them would be forced to commit seppuku. Because of this, Ranma had to hide himself from her whenever she came by, pretending to be Akane's female cousin 'Ranko Tendo', causing him so much grief to have his mother so close but just out of reach. Even after she found out about his curse and didn't count it as an automatic failure, the pledge is still held over his head. After all the hardships, all the grief, all the turmoil and trouble its caused him, it shouldn't be all that surprising that he'd still want it gone. No matter how beneficial his curse had helped him with improving upon his martial arts, no matter how being cursed humbled him and knocked his pride down a few pegs, no matter how many times Ranma says he's fine with dealing with it, anytime there's an opportunity, the slimmest chance Ranma can get it cured, he takes it.
3) What are their flaws as a character? What is something they've messed up, or have done that they regret?
Pride
As the old adage goes, "pride goeth before a fall". Ranma prides himself on a lot of things. His skills as a martial artist, his looks, his manhood, etc. Any insult or gibe to him pushes his buttons and rattles him into retaliation, in the form of bickering, fighting, etc. Ranma is a very vain individual, caring a lot about what others see and perceive in him, even going as far as to use his curse as a crutch just to spare himself any possible embarrassment as a guy. I.e. changing into a girl to eat ice cream since he thinks its unmanly to eat sweets, changing during when he was learning to figure skating since 'figure skating's just too embarrassing as a guy', etc.
On top of this, Ranma lives by a motto: "Ranma Saotome never backs down". If there's a fight to win or a goal he's set out to do, he'll stubbornly push on to accomplish it. While such resilience is a respectable trait to have, it's also been a detriment to him and others at time. There's been times when Ranma severely neglected his own well-being and health just to prepare himself for a fight, almost starving himself one time in order to learn the Parlay du Foie Gras. Another example would be when Gosunkugi, a minor rival, donned a battle armor that he couldn't take off until he lands a punch on his enemy (Ranma). Even when the suit openly announced it would self-detonate in five minutes if a punch wasn't made, which would've blown the two of them up, Ranma still wouldn't let Gosunkugi punch him all because he didn't want to lose the fight.
Impulsiveness
In tandem with Ranma's pride, there's also the matter of his impulsiveness. Ranma's more of a 'on the fly' sort of thinker, coming up with solution and plans as he's living in the moment. Much like his pride and stubbornness, while this had gotten him out of predicaments and lets him show off his guile, it also comes with a consequence. That being Ranma doesn't think about the consequences and how they affect him or others. Ranma's impulsiveness (in part with pride) has lead to him challenging opponents without being able to stand against them or is quick to underestimate them.
With impulsiveness also comes selfishness. While Ranma's normally selfless and eager to help people, there's been times when he let his own avarice get the better of him. Especially when it comes to the possibility of curing his curse. The moment a potential cure presents itself, Ranma leaps for it without making sure there's even a bottom to land. When he heard that whoever gave the best performance in Furinkan High's play of Romeo and Juliet would win an opportunity to see China (where he believed a potential cure could be), he immediately jumped in for his own selfish goals, even though he knew that the play was important to Akane. Needless to say, he ended up making a mess of the play and was quick to discover that the 'see China' reward was to meet an actor named China, not an actual trip. So his actions were all for nothing in the end, something he never accounted for because all he could think of was getting what he wanted.
Ailurophobia (CW: Trauma mention)
If you were to ask Ranma what his biggest fear is, he'd laugh and tell you that he's afraid of nothing. This would be a bold face lie. Ranma has ailurophobia, the extreme fear of cats. It all stemmed from when he was six years old, where Genma decided to put his son through a training exercise,'Neko-ken (Cat Fu)', he discovered in an old martial arts manual. The training was done by wrapping the practitioner in salty foods like fish sausages, before throwing them into a dark pit. This very pit contained hundreds upon hundreds of starved, feral cats that pounce the moment they smell the food, fighting over each other and doing anything to get the food tied to the boy's body, with no care or mercy to what happens to the body. Every time the young Ranma would climb out of the pit bloodied, clawed to hell and back and terrified, Genma would tie more salted meats and throw his son back inside over and over and over in an attempt to 'fix his fear' and desensitize him to the cats. It, unsurprisingly, did not help and only made it worse.
The entire experience left Ranma deeply scarred with a trauma of cats. Even the tiniest, fluffiest, sweetest little kitten will leave Ranma a screaming mess scrambling to get as far away from it as possible. If surrounded or near cats, Ranma can try to hold himself together, but his mental stability hangs on a thread throughout it, teetering on an edge. And should Ranma's trauma and fear tip over the edge, Ranma'll enter the Neko-ken. More on that in abilities.
4) Optional: What is something unique and interesting about them, or what is a fun little tidbit that sets them apart from the crowd?
To reach Jusenkyo, Ranma and his father didn't take a boat or ship or anything of the sort to get to China. They swam the sea of Japan all the way there. Not only that, but they actually managed to survive the harsh waves of Japan's seas and arrive in China, where they hiked up the mountain holding the cursed spring grounds that Ranma acquired his curse from.
Abilities & Inventory:
Note: For his tattoo, Ranma will be asking for a taijitu (or mostly known as yin-yang) symbol of the light element. This should give him back his full abilities, with the necessary nerfs in place should there be any required.
Superhuman Capabilities
For all of Ranma's life, Ranma was put through the wringer in order to hone his abilities, becoming borderline superhuman and capable of performing feats not easily done by most ordinary people.
-Superhuman Strength: Ranma has been shown being able to lift and shatter items larger than himself with just a punch such as walls, boulders, etc. His best displays of strength include swimming underwater with a boulder hundreds times his size and shoving it into the mouth of an eight-headed Orochi (aka this). Seconds later holding the Orochi's mouth open with his bare hands by the tooth to keep it from closing. Miscellaneous feats would also include punching the air hard enough for the air to strike foes and has been shown capable of using his hands to slice things such as walls.
-Superhuman Agility: Speed is what Ranma excels at best. He's capable of moving faster than what the human eye can perceive, able to leap several stories high in the air, cling onto ceilings like a cat and zip around like a blur. When strength fails, speed and acrobatics more than makes up for it, being able to throw hundreds of punches and kicks so fast that it looks like he only threw one punch/kick. One time he struck an opponent 518 times while spinning in under a couple seconds. This was before he underwent speed training for various speed-boosting techniques. After training in techniques meant for increasing striking speed such as the Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken, Parlay du Foie Gras, and Hakuda Toshin Shō, Ranma's capable of throwing thousands of punches and kicks fast enough for his arms and legs to become bright blurs.
-Superhuman Durability: Tough cookie doesn't even begin to describe Ranma. He's been smashed into a wall hard enough that all his bones should've been rendered to dust, blown up several times at point blank, scorched by flames hot enough to incinerate a portion of a mountain, fell from thousands of feet and more, all sort of things that'd kill most people that he's walked off like its nothing. That being said, he's not completely impervious to damage as he's been slashed and stabbed, broken bones, poisoned, paralyzed, etc.
NERF: For RP sake, Ranma's capabilities will be dialed back to what is reasonably allowed for this game.
Combat Adroitness
Fighting is Ranma's everything. He lives it, he breathes it, he knows the inner workings of it. Ranma specializes in a family made style known as 'Anything Goes Martial Arts', a style revolving around adaptability and mastery over any and all fighting styles and techniques, on top of specializing in air control and combat. Karate, kung fu, aikido, kendo, if there's a fighting style or technique out there you can think of, chances are Ranma's got it down to a science. Likewise, the world of Ranma also bears various styles of martial arts you wouldn't dream of being possible, such as Martial Arts Cheerleading, Martial Arts Figure Skating, Martial Arts Dining, you get the picture. And whenever there's a new form of fighting to be learnt, you can beat Ranma'll learn it in a flash, picking up how techniques work such as the Umi-Sen Ken having it used on him once.
Adept at figuring techniques and styles in seconds, Ranma relies on unpredictability in combat, always being on his toes and not letting his opponents guess his next moves, all while formulating his own plan and strategy at the same time. Hand-to-hand isn't the only type of fighting he does either. He's studied in knowing where any and all pressure points are on the human body to strike. And if he gets his hands on something, he'll use it in battle. Swords, staffs, knives, flails, whips, to even more unorthodox and improvised weapons as spoons, boulders, hair, tables, actual people, etc. In general, Ranma depends on being an all-round fighter, not sticking to one style or art form.
Jusenkyo Curse
After falling into the cursed spring Nyannīchuan (Spring of Drowned Girl), Ranma is now cursed to swap genders every time he is doused with water, or anything that would contain water such as soda or tea. Cold water triggers the curse, turning him into a small redheaded girl, while hot water (or steam could work too) reverses it and changes him back to normal. The changes are usually instantaneous, over just as quickly as Ranma got wet in the first place. It has to be splashed or doused on him or touch his outer skin, as it's been shown via one cursed character drinking straight from a kettle of hot water that drinking water doesn't trigger the curse. Another thing to note is those cursed by Jusenkyo usually attract water or scenarios where they're more likely to get wet, such as random buckets of water appearing inconveniently to splash on them, water pipes are more likely to burst when they're around, if drinking water from a bottle, that bottle is more likely to spill on them, etc.
Ki Manipulation
'Battle aura', in reality ki, is a form of energy manipulation fighters in Ranma 1/2 have mastery over that they're able to bring out and use in ways to better their fighting. Such as using ki to further improve durability, using ki to speed up the healing time on damages done (anything serious like a broken bone does take longer to heal, around a week or so), sense danger, ki pockets (basically hammerspace) to hold items (roughly about 3 items in Ranma's case, these being items small enough for him to hold on himself such as a book, water pistol or kettle for example) in, etc. Ranma has good control over his ki, with it occasionally seeping out and surrounding him in the form of a flame-esque aura when he feels a strong emotion, the color depending on his current emotions, such as blue for confidence or joy, or red for anger. Apart from the basic ki abilities, there's also ones specific to Ranma himself.
(With the light elemental tattoo, Ranma's ki control is improved significantly. Changes/improvement include:
- Ki healing now lets him use it on others to heal their injuries and wounds. The severity of the wounds factors into how much ki he uses (i.e. scrapes and bruises take minimum effort to heal up, cuts and stabs take a good bit to use, severe burns and broken bones require a lot of ki to be put into healing). If Ranma overdoes it and continuously heals people without giving himself a moment to rest and recharge, it'll significantly hinder his ability to fight and put him at risk of losing consciousness. Ki healing also only works on physical injuries. Afflictions such as illnesses, infections, and curses cannot be cured in this way.
- Ki pocket now allows for five small items to be held, or he can forgo all of them in favor of pocketing one large item (within reason, nothing insanely big like a whole building) in his ki such as a sword or chest.)
Mōko Takabisha
A ki beam ability made specifically by Ranma himself, firing a golden beam of pure energy and ki at his foes. Fueled by Ranma's pride, the Mōko Takabisha gets stronger and bigger the more confident Ranma is in himself. The beam can be fired from one hand, two hands, or even two beams fired at the same time by one hand each, with no cool down or charge up required, letting Ranma fire one after the other as long as he stays confident. Lucky for him that he has confidence in spades.
Soul of Ice
A technique Ranma uses to both suppress his emotions, and let off cold ki from his body. When undergoing this technique, all of Ranma's emotions and feelings are null and void to the point he could be compared to a lifeless corpse. This results in Ranma's body exuding a cold ki, dropping the temperatures around Ranma down to a cold degree. While initially learnt in order to suppress his pride and embarrassment for something he didn't want to do, this technique is vital in two abilities Ranma possesses.
Umi-Sen Ken
The first technique would be the Umi-Sen Ken. Created by Ranma's father intending on being a counter to another technique 'Yama-Sen Ken', the user is able to mask their ki to hide their presence, disappearing from view and allowing them to stealth around their opponent. The downside to this is Ranma must remain calm and collected during this. If even the slightest bit of emotion slips through, the mask is broken and he'll be exposed. It also isn't possible to attack during this state as any attack breaks it as well. That, and after its initial use, Ranma vowed to never use it again since A. Something like that makes battles cheap and unfair, and B. The original creation for the technique wasn't for martial arts, but for petty burglary, making the actual technique feel dishonorable for him to use in a fight.
Hiryū Shōten Ha
The second technique is the Hiryū Shōten Ha, being Ranma's strongest moves yet intended as a finishing move. Ranma goads the opponent into attacking him with taunts, jabs, anything to make them flare up and get angry. All the while dodging in a spiral, leading his foe on while also using the Soul of Ice technique to let out his cold ki. Once at the crux of the spiral Ranma lead them in, the hot energy from the attacking foe and the cold ki from Ranma clash and collide and Ranma initiates a punch, resulting in a tornado that returns a foes' strength and power back at them, effectively acting as a counter that hits a foe with their own power.
Of course, this being Ranma's most powerful technique, after being seen, it can be easily avoided once a foe knows how it works. Which is why Ranma's had to become creative and adapt, finding ways to use it in the event he needs to and the first option doesn't work. At the end of the Jusendo arc during his final battle with Saffron, Ranma was able to use the Hiryū Shōten Ha from the scorching hot flames and a small path of cold air the he mixed with his own cold ki.
Neko-Ken (CW: Trauma mention)
As stated in flaws, Ranma is deathly ailurophobic, unable to handle being around cats for too long due to his fear of them. Should this fear ever come to a head, Ranma loses himself and snaps, just as the Neko-ken intended. The idea behind the 'technique' was making the practitioner fight with the grace, speed and power of a cat. In this state, Ranma's mental state becomes that of a feral cat, zipping and bouncing at fast speeds and 'clawing' anything and anyone in sight with the use of air pressure from the swipes to cut and slash, being able to cut through tree, concrete, and solid chunks of ice.
Despite this, there's one giant drawback: The Neko-ken isn't a technique, it's induced psychosis. There was a reason why, as Genma found out after subjecting his son through the training, it was banned: Psychological distress, and that anyone who'd willing teach it is an idiot. When in this state, Ranma's mind mentally becomes that of a cat, losing all cognitive and humanly intellect in place of a feral creature running on instinct. Ranma loses all strategizing, all cognitive plaining, everything a martial artist should have during a fight. He's literally a feral creature, able to be distracted by simply throwing something and yelling 'fetch', behaving entirely like a cat would (yowling, clawing up a tree like a scratch post, etc.)
There's only a few ways to snap Ranma out of his state of galeanthropy. First being is him falling asleep in the lap of someone he trusts such as an old woman and Akane. The second, and more practical of the two is simply dumping water on him, jolting him out of the state. Either one snaps him out of it, unable to remember what happened during this state. Like it's been mentioned in flaws, Ranma is able to resist the fear and doesn't immediately snap into the Nekoken state just at the mere sight of a cat. It'll only happen if the fear reaches an unbearable level.
Inventory- Nothing but the clothes on his back has been brought with him. These being a red silk Tangzhuang shirt, black pants, slip-on flats and a tanktop he wears as an undershirt.
ARMADA SELECTION
This one is a no-brainer: Ranma's a Corsair for sure. His given name alone literally means 'chaotic' or 'reckless/wild horse'. That aside, chaos and Ranma goes hand in hand where his mere presence alone is guaranteed to have any normalcy go straight out the window. For all his honors and morals, Ranma isn't above lying, manipulating, coming up with harebrained schemes and stealing if it means defeating a foe or getting what he want. He'd even go as far as to use his curse to scam guys into giving her free stuff and food. And with a style known as 'Anything Goes Martial Arts', he isn't afraid of doing anything if it means a victory for him.
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