Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Underwear thieves of the animal world



See the cat in the pictures above wearing panties and near a pile of panties, his name is Oscar and he is a 13 year old British cat that steals panties (and other things but prefers panties) and brings them home to his owners. This cat is not the only animal I've read about stealing panties. I recall reading about a bird that made a nest out of panties and some baboons at Knowsley Safari Park in England breaking into luggage and taking the underwear.

Happosai in the Ranma ½ series is a pantie thief and were he to see one of the various articles about animals stealing panties I could easily see him acquiring some animals and teaching them to get panties for him. Cats would be a good choice since there are a lot of cats in Tokyo and the person who stops Happosai when he is on his raids the most often is Ranma, a person who has ailurophobia. Though as far as I can recall Happosai doesn't know that in the manga.

On the subject of ailurophobia (ailouros - Greek word for cat; phobos - Greek word for fear):
1. I've seen Nekophobia used a few times in fan fics and find it to be strange for some reason (Neko is Japanese for cat).
2. Scientists in Japan have created mice that have no fear of cats.
3. Some megalomaniac people have supposedly had a fear of cats. I've seen mention that Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Julius Caesar, Mussolini, and Napoleon all feared cats (though in some of the listed ones I believe that is myth not fact).

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Avoiding associations with other stories or fandoms

In my last post I mentioned how I didn't want people to think I was taking a technique from Naruto. This led me to thinking about other things I might want to include in a story and how I would not want it associated with other stories, particularly stories I dislike. People would associate things with other things regardless of how I portray it but I'm wondering if there are some writing techniques I do not know in which to make people not think the idea was taken from somewhere else.

I don't really like Harry Potter all that much but there are things I would use in a story that people who like Harry Potter a lot would think I got the idea from. For example how could I include Ranma visiting an apothecary, using potions with ingredients such as mandrake root or Orachi/dragon blood, and magic items without people thinking of Harry Potter. Pink or Link had mandrake, there were potions such as Happosai's rejuvenation potion, lots of magic items like the semi-sentient fire breathing staff, Ranma bought the girl repellent from and was going to get the memory restoring Shampoo from an apothecary in China, etc.

Another example: If Ranma hunts and kills/traps various Kami/Yokai how to make it so people don't think that it is from one of the various series such as Inuyasha that does that and if Ranma then uses them in a fight how to make people not think of Dragon Quest Monsters or Pokemon? Hunting and trapping creatures was in the manga for example the oni.

At the moment the only way I can think of to get people to not associate it with other stories is to remind the readers that the action or a similar one happened in the source material and that the other more popular or at least more saturated series having them is just coincidental.

Konatsu's Body Duplicating Technique

An easily overlooked but potentially awesome technique in the Ranma ½ manga is Konatsu's legendary body duplicating technique. It is easy to overlook since it is only shown briefly in a volume very close to the end of the manga. Here is what is known about it: It is legendary according to Ranma and Konatsu can create multiple duplicate bodies all of which can take separate poses.

This is a technique I would like to use were I to write a Ranma fan fic. A thing that I would not want but can't really think of a way to avoid is for people to think I copied it from Naruto since that is a series I dislike and it was in the Ranma manga. While there are other series in which people have the ability to make duplicate bodies (hell this series has multiple other ways in which to do so the anime has Cologne's Splitting cat hair technique, Happosai had an incense that could do so and Ranma acquired some magic that allowed his shadow to be independent of him; the manga has the mirror which made clones and the spring of the drowned twin water; if I remember correctly one or more of the games had this as an ability; etc.) I find it most likely that people would think I am taking the technique from Naruto (it is currently fairly popular and has a large number of fan fics).

It would be extremely likely for Ranma to learn this technique. Ranma has demonstrated the ability to learn techniques after only seeing them done once and it is likely that Ranma would hang around with and probably spar with Konatsu on occasion. While having multiple bodies would be very convenient for battle most of the ways I would use it would be outside of combat.

I think the technique should not be very easy, in fact fairly difficult, hence earning being called legendary. My usage of it would have each clone be fully independent but upon destruction or recall what they learned is dumped into Ranma's mind. Ranma at first would only be able to create one for a limited time (instability of the ki matrix or some other such explanation) with practice though the length of time they can exist and the number of them he could create would go up. The hard part is creating them, the more ki used the longer they last and more damage they can sustain. Ranma would figure out ways to do so quicker and easier such as making smaller ones like creating tiny ones like the Goddesses in Ah My Goddess do, I really like the Ah Mini Goddess manga and anime, (for many tasks he would prefer child size ones) and using an object as a battery such as a straw doll to contain the ki (it is shown in the manga that objects such as the principal's statue can hold ki).

Further variations of the technique would be shape changing them such as making a clone into a dog and for disguises. Instead of putting on a wig, dress, and make-up he could create a new body entirely or create an overlay over his own body.

Ways it would be used:
1. To do chores such as shopping or cleaning faster.
2. Training
3. Combat - mainly as a distraction though since Ranma would need time to create stronger longer lasting ones. Full size clone or clones very little damage taking ability last around thirty seconds takes seconds to make want one strong enough to take damage, last longer, and be able to actually fight takes time to create.
4. Plausible deniability i.e. be in a highly noticeable place while at the same time committing a crime such as searching someone's house (which he does a number of times in the manga).
5. Spying - again something he does multiple times in the manga.
6. Dealing with multiple things happening at once.
7. Catch up on his reading.
8. When he needs to be at more than one place at a time such as when he wanted to help Akane with the Dojo Destroyer and wanted to be on the date with Shampoo to get what he thought was a cure for his curse.
9. Manipulating people.

People who could tell the clone, at least this type of clone, from the real Ranma: Happosai, Genma, Konatsu, and Cologne and would be able to dispel them though they might use different means to do so. Hinako draining them would destroy them but she won't be able to tell them from the real one.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Windows vista problems

I occasionally use a laptop that has Windows Vista on it and find problems. I usually can find solutions to the problems via the internet. After fixing the problems I recently found on the laptop I decided to create this post in which to list the problem and the solution mostly for my own reference in case I encounter the same problem again (quicker to find here then search the net for the answer again and easier to find on the blog then in a text document on the computer).

1. Can not delete a folder on the desktop. Receive the error Could not find this item.
Solution:
  • Open up Command Prompt (CMD)
  • type in cd then the location of the file ( c:\users\jeremiah\desktop)
  • type in dir /x
  • next to the file I want to delete it will say the files 8.3 name [ex. (SUPER~1]
  • type RD then [(SUPER~1] - could try DEL then the file name but that didn't work for this folder
2. Programs list is reset to defaults during logon.
Solution:
  • Open Regedit
  • Find: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
  • In the right-pane, create a new DWORD value named StartMenuInit
  • Double-click StartMenuInit and set 3 as its data