Great story! I may not have liked the last two chapters, but the earlier ones were pretty good.

i love this story.

Ok. This has turned into quite the GOOD What if story. Well presented, structured, and paced. This piece seems to be well thought out, and drafted several times. Well done so far, and update this soon please

Awesome story. I hope this gets updated at some point.

This is good. You can see that Akane is learning that mistakes have results, good and bad. And Kuno getting himself disqualified for further forfeits does have a meaning. He was given a chance and he took advantage of it so there were consequences from authorities.

I enjoyed reading this very much. Hopefully, you'll return to finish it. Thank you for a very enjoyable read.

As far as OOC vs cannon goes, isn't the point of fanfic is to put forth an alternate viewpoint? If I wanted cannon, I'd read the manga, watch the anime, and not be reading the stories here.

where's ch 8?

A good story, beautifully written. Unfortunately my interest in it waned until the only reason I finished was completism. Perhaps that's fortunate, considering the fact that you wrote all of this in the space of a month in 2004, making its continuation unlikely to say the least.

The facts that the Tendo and Kuonji engagements are the two that Saotome honor is most seriously invested in, and that the Tendo engagement is the more easily canceled of the two, combined with the opportunities that a completely fresh start provides, makes a persuasive enough argument that the story direction I questioned before becomes quite reasonable, as long as Ranma is being objective, which treating the future events as simply a phophetic dream certainly helps accomplish.

Even before, standard-grade suspension of disbelief was completely adequate for me to swallow Akane being discriminated against; now, I hardly blink an eye that Ranma would avoid a Tendo marriage in favor of Kuonji.

I'm hardly an expert on interpersonal relationships, and I've never been married, but I don't understand why Ranma would be so opposed to trying to (gradually) build a relationship with Akane. I would understand if their marriage had ended badly enough that trying again would be much too painful, but obviously he WAS willing to give his ex-wife a second try. What other reason could a man as stubborn as Ranma have for not taking the opportunity a completely fresh start provides?

I'm hardly a rabid Akane fan, and it's a very good idea for him to avoid jumping in too quickly to any kind of relationship with this Akane, for any number of reasons. But to discard the possibility entirely seems odd.

Very nice, though I didn’t like the last few chapters nearly as much as the middle ones, the first few were okay, but not great. Not much else to say, so, Ciao

This is the best written chapter I've seen yet in one of your fanfictions. Your earlier stories like 'To Tell a Hawk From a Handsaw' left whole scenes as simply lines of dialouge making it hard to easily recognise who is speaking which line (I'm pretty sure this is refered to as 'hanging quotes'.)

Adding the over all quality of writting to the vastly humourous story I can't help but, yet agian, leave myself in suspense for another update.

one thing have ranma hook up with nabiki.

I like this one a lot, and I can see alternate versions of the solutions presented in TTaHfaHs in many situations. The prophetic dream/shoved back in time thing isn't original, but the ambiguity about just which it is is, and a very realistic touch, might I add. And how could I not like someone who explains himself with a W. C. Fields quote? I also love the training methods, and I think you're doing just fine with it; a chapter and a half concentrating on it, then you can shunt it aside as something that happens on weekends as a background to the rest of the plot. Perhaps if you want to continue the training theme you could work on Ranma and Cologne next.

Now I've finally realize what hurts so much about reading the latter chapters of this. I've always known that it was the training, but WHAT ABOUT the training finally hit me.

I know you've wanted to dance around quasi-lemon, even to much stronger lemon with those punishments for failing, and you even found yourself rushing ahead to get to the 'good parts'.

Well, I don't mind citrus, I really don't. But what bugs me about this story is the public humiliation aspect. I love lemon! A nice, private piece of lemon between a boy and a girl who love each other is one of the best reasons to read fanfiction. But out in public, sharing her innermost secrets with strangers is horrifying to me, and cheapens and degrades instead of tittiliates. It turns me off instead of on.

So here is what I suggest you do. You'd told me before that you had two problems you named, one was that you'd found the training was taking over the story, another was that you wanted those lemon bits included, but was having trouble integrating them with the rest.

You had even proposed rewriting the last few chapters of this if you could come up with a good idea.

I now have that good idea.

Separate the lemony bits from the training.

Get as lemony as you want. Divorce it from the training entirely, if you want, or save it for a positive reward instead of a negative one.

Yes! I want to see good, clean lemony fun between Ranma and his girls. Just take the crowd aspects out of it and this could be a reward instead of punishment.

If sex is no fun for those involved it's no fun to read, either.

You've got to have a carrot as well as a stick if you are to properly motivate people. Rewrite the last sections so that the sexy bits are the good stuff! Hey! You learned the technique! Great! Now you get those kisses and the date you wanted! Cool! You learned the next one higher up. Excellent! Now come to my room and take off your shirt. As you improve we can move on to steadily better things together.

I'd already written you page after page of suggestions for cleaning up the training, yet you were unsure of using any of them because you liked the naughty bits. Well, a confession: I like naughty bits too! I just don't get excited by degrading and hurting girls I like with public exposure and humiliation. It doesn't turn my crank to let any random Joe off the street oogle (and fondle, in your story already) a girl I like. I can put myself in Ranma's place and figure anything he does is fine 'cause in a way he's me, he's the character I relate with. But selling tickets makes those girls prostitutes, and that's just not going to do it for me.

But once they like it, once it wasn't something they feel shame and revulsion over, I'd enjoy it too.

Regardless, and sorry for spouting so much, what I see this doing for you is unblocking your story. You wanted very much to be pursuing those naughty bits, but you found that the training was taking over your story. That's your answer. So long as those naughty bits are a result of your training schedual, the lessons will dominate your story.

To restate: if you are driving forward toward the lemony stuff, and the lemony stuff comes as a result of training, you will get a great deal of training that will crowd out other aspects of your story. That's just the way it is.

If you separate the lemony goodness from the training, then the training will NOT take over your story, and can actually serve as a balance against the lemony stuff, switching off between that and other parts to achieve balance.

If you want the naughty stuff to race ahead to the 'good parts', fine! Go ahead! Great! Do it! I couldn't be happier... if it was actually good stuff instead of tainted in such a way so that the girls don't actually like it - as it must be if this is to be used as a punishment and something they want to avoid.

So why have them wanting to avoid it if you want to include it? What purpose does that serve? None that I can see.

So what I'd suggest is that you drop the punishment aspect entirely, or make it entirely non-sexual. That way you can use as much training as you desire, and only as much as you desire, no more. Uncoupling it from the lemony stuff gives you freedom to use as much of either one as the mood strikes or the story demands.

Rewrite the last couple of chapters. If you want to see my old suggestions for redoing the training, I may be able to find those to resend them. But I really think that is how you can recover this story, to rewrite it so the naughty bits are not dependant upon the training, or vice versa. That way you can keep them both without either one taking over. Also, the mood for those naughty bits would be so much better if it wasn't done to hurt and humiliate those girls involved, and it wouldn't be that way if it wasn't being used as negative reinforcement.

That is my suggestion. Take as much of both as you want, but don't make them dependant upon each other or your story will stay unbalanced and even the fun stuff won't be fun because it's been mixed with those negative aspects required to make it not fun for those involved, and thus no fun to read.

Now, on to the next suggestion.

Something tells me you may want to preserve some of the random, game-show feel of who winds up doing what naughty thing with Ranma. If so, that's fine. He does want to be figuring out who he wants to spend the rest of his life with and all those around him are interested is deciding who that is going to be too. So doing dirty deeds with Ranma is going to be a hot topic, hotly debated among those girls interested in him.

So, allow me to share with you an idea I once had, the Tenchi Sweepstakes (originally designed for you can guess what series).

First: All girls are entered by default. Obviously that is not 'all girls everywhere'. It applies to unmarried girls of marriagable age who already have a nodding acquaintance with him (Yuka and Sayuri could even qualify for this one, as they have spoken with him in the past), or a previous claim (like an engagement), or a sponsor who is already close to him (so Kuno could enter his sister, for example). But they all get entered to start with. Once the initial contestants are set, entries are frozen unless the judges detemine otherwise, either on case-by-case or general basis.

Second: Any girl can remove herself at any time by simply saying words to that effect before qualified witnesses. That would be the boy who was the object of this sweepstakes, and any of the contest judges (the married females and older relations whose judgement could be trusted. So Nodoka and Cologne, NOT Soun, but very possibly Kuno). Only she can drop herself out of the running, no one else, not even Ranma, can do it to her.

Third: The boy who is the object of this sweepstakes can NOT put a girl back into the running once she has excluded herself. This stops any contestant from getting away with a temper fit by whipping up a few tears afterwards and pulling some emotional blackmail, and is part of the selection process that is supposed to produce a stable, worthwhile mate for Ranma at the end.

It is up to the panel of judges to determine if a girl can be re-entered, although since most of those on it have a champion they'd favor for victory, her convincing a simple majority that she is properly penitent and worthwhile to requalify is hard enough and will do.

Fourth: The actual mechanism of the game. Every day you have a point tally. Every girl gets rewarded a certain amount of points for behavior suitable for a future mate of the boy involved. Each task and type of activity has a point value, good or bad, depending on how they'd suit her to a life with Ranma (so doing chores around the house and honestly complimenting Ranma are good things, martial art practice is close to a necessity, while blackmail carries a stiff penalty, etc). I wouldn't list these, except to say they are listed and those girls know them. That way you can freely select who is ahead based on your story outline - or a roll of some dice, whichever you prefer.

At the end of each day, the girl with the highest point total is awarded an hour with Ranma. What she does with him is her own business, and subject only to what he'll allow. Then the points are reset to start over on a new day (reset probably makes the most sense to happen right after the winner for a day is decided and the hour award is issued).

Fifth: Any contestant, or advocate of a contestant, who violates the award hour of another girl, forfeits the next reward they (or the girl they support) would have earned and gives Ranma an evening free. Repeated violations can drop a girl from the running - if it's her doing it. No funny busines about a guy claiming to support a girl, then purposefully, or stupidly, getting her dropped by being an invasive bastard on a repeated basis. You see that kind of strategy, and whoever is doing it is NOT an actual advocate of that girl's chances, no matter what he says. This is likely to apply to Soun, or at least a canon one. Genma would otherwise certainly sink the changes of whatever Tendo girl he was championing at the time.

Sixth: Victory conditions. This contest is not about 'Oh, look, I won four in a row, I win!' No, this is about time alone and undisturbed with Ranma. How she catches him is her own business, and he's not obligated to do stuff he's uncomfortable with. The contest is about opportunities to be alone and undisturbed so she can work her wiles, not a fancy way to sell him down the river to whoever knows how to manipulate the point setup to her advantage.

However, since you are doing this, in part, for the lemon, it might be to your advantage to set up a mechanism for doing more than having a quiet dinner for two or walk on the beach on those hours alone.

It is possible for neutral parties to decide on a limiter for fooling around, or set up a separate contest for it - even if it is something so simple as drawing from a jar (Oh! Goodie! I drew full frontal massage!) or working through a list from slight to stronger and stronger lemony activities, independant for each girl. So while Kasumi, who is cheerful and good on doing chores, might have won her way through repeated vicories to a tonsil tasting session with Ranma, Akane might well be lagging behind at holding hands, while Ukyo or Shampoo might be all of the way up to (insert lemony good stuff here), while Kodachi lingers behind with merely showing each other some forbidden flesh on her next date with her Ranma-sama.

In fact, you could well do BOTH list and random draw and work each as separate angles for your story. Each time a girl wins an award, which can be done via training success or being a good homekeeper, whatever you decide is worth rewarding (and the more ways they can earn one, the better for your story - you don't even have to list them all, just pull out a new one each time you think it's due). Ahem, each time a girl earn a reward, she has an option of taking the next item on her list, which starts out mild and works up to more serious as she crosses off the ones she and Ranma have already done on official dates together, ie, the slow yet sure route. Or she can go for the random draw and see whatever that turns up. It could be mild, it might be heavily steamy, but whatever it is doesn't guarantee her any better on her next draw. They could go from full horizontal tango on one draw to a walk together in a park on the next.

Since, due to the rules of this contest, he could very well be getting intimate with several girls who are doing well before any actually win, one or more of the judges is probably going to propose some sort of consolation prize, where once girls have reached a certain level of intimacy with him they still get to keep doing that much even if another girl eventually marries him. This could be called a Mistress position, or you might arrange something Amazon where he gets multiple brides, and they are only competing over First Wife (and decision maker) status.

Girls who do not acheive a certain level of intimacy with Ranma before the contest ends are able to go off and pursue lives on their own, if they so choose. Or, a non-vengeful victor could award them mistress status for her husband as a consolation prize because she likes them or they were good losers, etc. It's all up to you.

Whatever you decide for specifics, adopting this plan means you get your game show aspects, the lemony good stuff, and martial arts training without any of those dominating the others. So you can change focus between them as much as you desire, sometimes more heavily weighted on one over another, and vice versa, as you and your story need to progress and remain balanced.

It allows you freedom to pursue whatever aspect you want to pursue at any one time, and should completely unblock you from the tangle you are trapped in now.

And should you want to, you could have a 'Bad Sex' jar to use for punishments, just as you've got a good one from which they can draw rewards. In fact, the entire contest can have a good side for rewarding good behavior and a bad one for punishing bad. So say Nabiki earns a penalty from entering Ranma-chan in a wet-T-shirt contest, she has a choice where she can A) lose the next hour she would've earned with Ranma. Or, if she didn't want to forfeit her hour or wasn't going to earn one soon anyway, take one of B) take the next item on an ever-increasing list of escalating S&M treatments like spankings, bondage, etc, C) draw one from the 'Bad Girl' jar that contains the same types of things, but in random order, or D) drop out of the contest entirely and accept defeat.

One could even imagine a girl like Nabiki getting a clever idea and pushing herself DOWN the S&M side of things as fast as she could, because sex is sex and once she's achieved that level of intimacy, even tied up and with toys involved, on her knees or a furry, she is at least assured a mistress position as consolation prize - a tactic she might elect if she believed she could never reach that far on the good side before some others racing up the good track achieved victory.

Oddly, I could easily see a pair like Akane and Nabiki racing each other down the dirty way toward Ranma as others rushed up toward the top by the good one, with one or two slip ups if you really want to see Ranma giving Ukyo or Shampoo a spanking.

If you must do punishment sex, don't do it before a crowd. Hand off some portion of it to someone like Kodachi, who earns her own points, in part, by being a 'punisher of dirty girls'. Just leave out the crowds and random strangers and even those 'bad girl' moments could regain some charm, considerable charm if done well, with a certain perverse tenderness.