Imperial Servant
is a Ranma ½ Fanfic by The World's Tallest Leprechaun. While not a crossover, it uses the character Dabbler from Grrl Power as the succubus Xuriel, who serves to provide an answer to Ranma Saotome's romantic issues. What follows is typical Nerima madness, a shocking discovery, and a closing of the ranks among the normally combative Wrecking Crew.
Imperial Servant provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: In-Universe, despite everything else, Akane can't help but burst out laughing at Ranma sheepishly asks her if dildos are actually a real thing that girls buy. Likewise, when Ranma inadvertently reveals that Nabiki's splashing him with water as he slept for cheesecake photos had him half-convinced he'd developed a bed-wetting problem, Akane has to visibly fight to stop from laughing again.
- All Men Are Perverts: As part of Ranma's rant, he complains about the sheer perversion of other teen guys at Furinkan High School, revealing the lewd suggestions they've made to him and how they sexually harass him because of his Gender Bender curse.
- Anti-Magic: Ranma is able to shut down succubus glamours if they are used against him. This is one of the side-effects of being under the effects of the Imperial Servant.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Genma is told about Ranma being under the Imperial Servant, he looks like he's about to run away. It then turns out he's merely getting his journal to find out where on the training trip Ranma might have received it.
- Charm Person: To stop Akane from being a nuisance with her "anti-perversion tantrums", Xuriel hits her with one of these, leaving her temporarily blissed out and much more comfortable with expressing her sexual thoughts and desires.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Invoked and Deconstructed; Ranma is clueless about sex because he's been hit with a pressure point attack that has spiritually neutered him since he entered puberty.
- Curse That Cures: As it turns out the effects of the Imperial Servant doesn't apply to whenever Ranma transforms into a girl, or at least not as strongly.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Nabiki ends up so traumatized by what Xuriel reveals about Ranma that she actually becomes openly sympathetic to him, even weeping over his condition at one point.
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Happosai made a bet with a succubus named Carrie that if he could hold out against her for a month, she'd teach him how succubi feed on tantric energy, and he used the Imperial Servant technique so he'd be unable to give in until the month was up, allowing him to win what Carrie thought was a sure bet.
- Dumbass Has a Point:
- Even Kuno can tell Gosunkugi why him not bothering to learn how to banish a demon after summoning it was a bad idea, which should tell you something.
- Whilst Ranma's protests are ultimately wrong, and he's making them solely out of wounded pride, he does bring up legitimate reasons why he would be far more sexually closed off than the average guy.
- Whilst effectively stoned from Xuriel's Charm Person spell, Akane manages to reason out that Genma may not be at fault for Ranma's being gelded with the Imperial Servant: even if he might have found it useful on the road, surely Genma wouldn't have forgotten to take it off after finally deeming it time to pair Ranma up with Akane.
- Eating the Eye Candy: After her attempt to use her glamour on Ranma fails, Xuriel double-checks it by using it on Ukyo. Upon assuming the form of Ranma himself in a Naked Apron with blatant innuendo written on itnote , she is the target of open appreciation from Nabiki, Shampoo and Cologne, with many of the other present schoolgirls implied to be very grateful for the view.
- Enemy Mine:
- The Sidhe are so powerful and monstrous that angels and demons will actually work together to oppose them.
- After learning about Ranma's condition, Mousse makes a personal vow to first reveal it to the elders of Jokestuzoku so he can get Ranma's engagement to Shampoo annulled, and then to help Ranma get cured; rivals or not, in Mousse's eye, no man deserves that.
- Enraged by Idiocy: When Xuriel hears the full extent of Gosunkugi's incompetence as a demon summoner, she attacks him with a sword that shoots tornadoes of flame and has to be restrained by Ranma's fiancee brigade. At which point, she settles for swearing violently.Xuriel: "NOTHING THAT F-CKING STUPID SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO BREATHE!"
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Despite being a demon, Xuriel is openly contemptuous of Akane in the first few chapters for her bad temper and unreasonably suspicious attitude. She also despises Gosunkugi for his ineptitude in summoning, and gets him blacklisted so that no demon or other extraplanar being will ever answer one of his summoning spells again.
- In chapter 8, under the influence of the Zone of Truth spell, Nabiki informs Ranma that she's going to stop selling her cheesecake and beefcake photos of Ranma, at least so long as he's under the Imperial Servant; it was one thing when she believe he simply didn't care enough to exploit his sexiness for financial gain himself, but now that she knows she was taking advantage of someone who was functionally handicapped, that's another story.
- The Fair Folk: Sidhe, creatures of incredible power and even more incredible maliciousness and self-centeredness. They're terrifying enough that demons and angels despise them to the point of teaming up against them, and they made Jusenkyo. After learning that he could have summoned one of them, Gosunkugi suddenly feels a lot better about being blacklisted.
- Flat "What": Xuriel, when Gosunkugi tells her that he can't unsummon/banish her because he never read the chapters on exorcising demons, and skipped straight to summoning demons.
- Heel Realization: Learning about Ranma's inability to experience sexual attraction or arousal makes Tatewaki Kuno, Ryoga and Mousse all feel deeply ashamed of themselves
- Heroic BSoD: When Cologne, Xuriel, Nabiki, and Akane realize that Genma didn't put a pressure point on Ranma that shut off his sex drive, and thus he can't fix Ranma they each have one of these, followed swiftly by Genma, Nodoka, and Soun as the crying Nabiki explains what happened at school.
- Hope Spot: Following the Heroic BSoD example, Genma runs for his travel journal as he remembers an incident from Ranma's childhood that might explain what's going on.
- Horrifying the Horror: The second time that Xuriel attempts to use her glamour on Ranma, she ends up nearly-fainting, holding herself and trembling as she mutters about "the void".
- I Know Your True Name: The only reason that Gosunkugi was able to summon Xuriel is because he somehow found her true name. And even then, his spell was so pathetic that she only showed up because she was curious.
- Imperfect Ritual: Gosunkugi's ritual was so badly executed it is only by sheer luck that he wasn't murdered or fused with Xuriel. Among many faults, he used his own blood which may have resulted in said fusion if he used anymore.
- The Incorruptible: Kasumi, in fine Ranma 1/2 fanfiction tradition, is so pure she can even see through Xuriel's glamour, and her disapproval can force the angry succubus to refrain from swearing in her home. Furthermore, absolutely nobody in the room doubts that Kasumi qualifies to successfully cast a Zone of Truth spell from a scroll that Xuriel has. Chapter 8 then reveals that Kasumi is so pure, she unwittingly empowered the Zone of Truth spell, causing it to both envelop the entire Tendo household and to remain active for hours after it would have normally worn off.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As it turns out, Happosai still knows the Imperial Servant pressure point, but when asked to remove it from Ranma, he refuses. It turns out he has a good reason: he doesn't know the what will happen to Ranma once the point is undone, given how long Ranma has been living with it and that he received it at a young age. If Happosai's going to attempt it, someone else needs to monitor Ranma's ki to make sure nothing goes wrong.
- Mythology Gag: In chapter 8, Nabiki mentions the first time she took a cheesecake photo of Ranma-chan was by changing him back and forth in his sleep, to which an outraged Ranma almost reveals that he had thought he'd wet the bed because of that; this is something that happened in the fourth episode of the anime.
- Not Me This Time: When the other members of the Wrecking Crew learn about the Imperial Servant pressure point, they immediately assume that Genma was responsible. When he indignantly confronts them on this, they point out his long history of stupid ideas, such as the Nekoken and Jusenkyo. Genma retorts by pointing out that all of those mistakes were missteps in his plan to make Ranma a strong, capable, manly martial artist, whilst spiritually gelding him runs completely and obviously contradictory to his goals.
- Oh, Crap!: Ranma's reaction in the dirty magazine shop as it starts to sink in that, maybe, despite his protests, the others were right in saying something is wrong with him.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Most of the casts' reaction when Ranma loses his temper and and cusses them out.
- Soun and Genma when they see Nabiki crying, after Genma is threatened by Xuriel and Cologne.
- Kasumi actually almost swears (she says "Masaka!") when she hears that Ranma is incapable of feeling any form of sexual desire.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: Kuno is utterly mortified when Xuriel shapeshifts into his mother dressed as a beach bunny and causes his father to go wild. Even Akane feels sorry for him.
- Pay Evil unto Evil:
- Xuriel is so outraged when she learns that Ranma is under the effects of sex drive-eliminating pressure point that she becomes determined to help punish whoever used it on him.
- Ditto, when the group comes to believe Genma is responsible, Mousse decides that he should transfer his aggression from Ranma to Ranma's father.
- Before heading back to the Dojo, Nabiki instructs Ukyo and the other girls to discern and punish the perverts amongst Furinkan's male populace whom Ranma has just outed.
- Power Limiter: The Imperial Servant technique, in addition to shutting off a man's sex drive, also renders them physically weaker, since it was traditionally applied to male martial artists who used their strength to abuse women.
- Revenge Fic: Deconstructed, as Word of God says the story was written to expand on a poorly used plot point that is used in fics which tend to bash the cast of Ranma 1/2.
- Due to a pressure point, Ranma Saotome's sex drive has been shut off since he was a kid. Unlike other stories where this has been used; it wasn't Genma's fault, or anyone among the Wrecking Crew, and it's the main point of the story rather than being solved in 1 chapter and used as an excuse for Ranma to finally show interest in girls without being OOC.
- Rage Breaking Point: Ranma, after the Wrecking Crew tosses out theory after theory on why and how his sex drive was shut off finally snaps and shouts them down for assuming there's something wrong with him, rather than because he has good willpower. He get's his second wind when Xuriel tries to reassure him, but mistakenly uses the word 'broken' in reference to him.Ranma: I! Am! NOT! BROKEN!!!
- Read the Freaking Manual: When he learned how to summon a demon, Gosunkugi skipped the first few chapters of the manual. Said chapters included all basic demon banishing techniques and safeties necessary for someone to not risk being killed (or worse) by said demon. More details are below in the Too Dumb to Live bullet.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ranma angrily rants at Nerima Wrecking Crew for thinking there's something wrong with him when it's revealed that his sex drive has been shut off since he was a kid rather than because he has good willpower and a lot of valid reasons why he can control himself better than other guys.
- So Proud of You: Genma admits he felt that after seeing a twelve-year-old Ranma beating three wolf packs into submission without assistance, and learning Ranma just received a curse that would diminish his martial prowess only comforted him in his pride.
- Title Drop: Cologne reveals that Imperial Servant is the name of the pressure point that was used to suppress Ranma's sex drive.
- Too Dumb to Live: Gosunkugi attracts the scorn of everyone when it's revealed that not only did he forgo the most basic binding aspects of a demon summoning ritual — namely, forbidding the fiend to reveal his name and prohibiting it from killing him — but he actually completely forwent studying the basics of banishing demons. As in, he was so fixated on summoning a demon, he thought it was completely unimportant to learn how to send it away when he was done with it. To emphasize just how stupid this is, Kuno is able to explain why failing to learn core banishing techniques is so dangerous. The author notes in the closing notes of the rewritten version that, technically, this makes Gosunkugi dumber than Genma; Genma may have been a fool for not reading the warnings on the Neko-ken, but those warnings should have been on the front page. Gosunkugi deliberately skipped the warnings.
- He then tops this by revealing he used his own blood in the summoning circle, which Xuriel explains could have resulted in her and him being fused together, Body Horror style, irrevocably.
- It's revealed that Hiroshi and Daisuke have actually discussed a shared fantasy of banging Ranma's female form in a 2-guys/1-girl threesome. When this is revealed in front of Ranma himself, they quickly make themselves scarce.
- Some of the guys at Nerima have apparently suggested that Ranma should try and make a sex slave out of not only Nabiki Tendo, but also Kasumi.
- Truth Serums: The Zone of Truth spell is used in order to get Genma to talk. However, Kasumi's nature causes the spell's effects to be amplified, enveloping the whole house and lasting longer. This would lead to Ranma admitting his actual feelings on everyone when Akane asks.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: For all his verbal hostility towards Genma, Ranma is reduced to tears when he accidentally eavesdrops on the man genuinely praising him and expressing his belief that the gender-swapping youth will become the greatest martial arts expert in the world.
- What Have I Done: Xuriel quotes this when she starts her attempt to seduce Ranma Saotome by sitting in his lap and snuggling him, and immediately jumps clear due to provoking a "kung-fu moshpit" from out of nowhere.
- Wham Line: When Xuriel tells Gosunkugi why his plan to have a succubus seduce Ranma to ruin his reputation wouldn't have worked.Xuriel: "Sorry to tell you, skinny boy, but your plan was doomed to failure from the start." Xuriel explained as she gave Ranma a frustrated, sympathetic look. "Because Mr. Cheating Thug here is asexual.
- She ends up being...not wrong, but not correct either.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Xuriel, when she realizes almost immediately that Ranma was not a philandering lothario as she'd been told, calls out Gosunkugi for lying to her, though he didn't believe he was lying when he said it.
- What Were You Thinking?: Xuriel to Gosunkugi when it sinks in that the amateur wizard who summoned her had no safe-guards in place, in case she went on a rampage.
