Fanfiction – “Ill Met by Starlight”

Title: Ill Met by Starlight
Author: Susan Doenime and Mike L.
Source: Ranma 1/2
Rating: 5/6
Type: Dark Psychological Thriller
Length: 13 episodes, 3 epilogues, and an outtakes reel

Any Ranma 1/2 fan will tell you that Ranma Saotome doesn’t lose. Oh sure, he may have some setbacks but he always wins in the end, right? But what if Ranma Saotome weren’t such a good guy? What if he was the villain? “Ill Met by Starlight” by Susan Doenime and Mike L is a psychological thriller which puts a new, darker twist on the tale of martial arts idiocy which we all love.

Upon opening up the first page of this story, I was greeted with three pieces of quoted poetry. One for the fickleness of causality, one for the darkness and light in all of our souls, and one in german. I have always enjoyed fiction which begins the story or chapter with a quote. It’s a nice way to set the mood and to give the story depth. Then, a short speech by the author which could easily be quoted verbatim should hell ever freeze over and fanfics become movies.

Following that is an interesting story detailing a Ranma who is very different from the one we know. A story that follows characters’ thoughts much more thoroughly than any other story I’ve read thus far and does a fairly nice job of throwing monkey wrenches into the reader’s expectations. Nabiki does deviate from canon by being a mercenary who helps to keep the family afloat instead of just being greedy but that’s pretty much standard for fanfiction and the rest of the story definitely makes up for it.

As for the storyline, I definitely liked it. Every change has a reason, though you won’t see the full picture until the end. The developments flow so smoothly that you don’t really know when a fact has finally solidified from the intricate web of confusion and doubt. In fact, throughout the story, my rating has wavered up and down as I misunderstood, realized, and misunderstood again. There are bits of humor scattered around but, except for the outtakes reel, they serve only to further develop the mood.

Most of the chapters begin with relevant quotes, I do enjoy that. I also like references which further my knowledge and this is the first time I’d heard of Gunkanjima. (Hashima island) I’ll probably write a blog entry about it later. Be sure to check out the outtakes reel. It’s HILARIOUS. If you don’t get any of the references, feel free to ask in the comments. I’d be happy to name them.

Finally, you’ll probably never guess what simple change cause this much divergence from the original story. True, in the original story, Ryoga didn’t have a sister and Nabiki wasn’t as beneficial to the household finances but those are easy mistakes to make unless you read the right issues of the Ranma 1/2 Manga. I have yet to read the authors’ notes but I get the feeling that this story draws exclusively from the anime.

My final rating is 5 out of 6 and I think I’ll add psychological thrillers to my fanfiction “find some” list.

Fanfiction – “Ill Met by Starlight” by Stephan Sokolow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.