Tangled Fate is a Crossover Fic between Ranma ½ and Exalted, written by Grounders 10.
A group of Sidereals loses control over their ritual, causing a huge disruption in reality that plucks people all over Earth and scatters them across Creation — after granting them power beyond their wildest dreams.
Among these displaced are many residents of Nerima. Now, will they manage to thrive in this brand-new world, or will Creation be too much even for Ranma Saotome, Solar Exalted?
The fanfic can be found here
on Fanfiction Dot Net, here on Sufficient Velocity and here on Space Battles.
Tropes you can find in the story
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Setarial outright kneels to Ranma to ask the Solar martial artist to rule over Greyfalls and save it from Dawn-Comes-With-Thunder. Seeing a goddess willingly abase herself so shocks Ranma into agreeing.
- Break the Haughty: When Kodachi exalted as a Zenith, the Unconquered Sun forced her to see everything she did in life and judge it according her late mother's standards. The formerly prideful Kuno scion is reduced to a self-loathing wreck afterwards.
- Cassandra Truth: Ranma explains she's actually cursed to be a sexshifter to her maids but when a hot bath fails to restore her masculinity, said maids quietly discuss the possibility of Ranma merely being crazy because hey, Solar Exalted, it comes with the territory. After that reaction, the martial artist decides to keep mum regarding the Jusenkyô curse.
- Comically Inept Healing: Kodachi is rather hesitant about possibly recreating modern drugs and medicines, since the needed components might not be known yet or have a very different effect because this is another world entirely. And of course, because Creation works on narrativium, Kodachi is unsure that miasma theory might be real there.
- Divine Right of Kings: None may rule Greyfalls without Setarial's blessing. She ultimately picks Ranma as her favored candidate.
- Setarial picking Ranma also was because Solar Exalteds have been Creation's intendants, protectors and kings as mandated by Heaven. Yes, the Usurpation happened but the mandate wasn't officially annuled.
- Do Not Call Me Sir: Ranma is no lady. Yes, it's partially her gender issues, but it's also her being genuinely uncomfortable with the idea of being an authority figure since she got so much trouble with these.
- Easily Forgiven: Downplayed with Ryu Kumon and Kodachi — Ranma is her usual self around them, but she was pretty pissed to see they were stuck in the same place as her and admits she cannot bring herself to trust them.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Any martial expert who got Exalted in the translation.
- Everyone Has Standards: Ranma and Ryouga are used to Nerima being chaotic, but hearing the Usurpation saw the conspirators exploding a whole constellation leaves them gaping. There is Nerima bullshit, and there is Exalted bullshit.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Already more than 200,000 words and that's only the first part. This is a very full week for everyone.
- Fantastic Racism: The Realm and the Immaculate Order have no love for the Solar or Lunar Exalteds. An Immaculate Monk attempts to murder an unconscious Kodachi when he sees her Zenith-caste mark, and the local garrison immediately jumps on Ranma and Ryouga when they land in the barracks.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Since Ranma and Ryouga were in the bath when they were displaced in Creation, they land naked. And since Greyfalls' garrison attempt to murder them for being Anathema immediately after their arrival, they need to defend themselves — and kick ass while doing so, still naked.
- Godzilla Threshold: Because an army led by a bloodthirsty Solar Exalt is bearing down on Greyfalls, Ranma formally allows Ryu Kumon to unseal the Yamasen-ken.
- Hero of Another Story: A sidestory shows Nodoka Saotome Exalting as a Twilight-caste Solar and landing in the abandoned city of Rathess with Kasumi (and potentially Nabiki) who Exalted as a Lunar, meeting descendants of the Dragon Kings and hearing an ominous prophecy about her having to fight some dreadful opponent without any guarantee of survival.
- Jerkass Gods: Ranma firmly believes deities are more trouble than they's worth and can only bring misfortune to mortals, so she's genuinely shocked when Setarial proves to be a subversion.
- Lady-In-Waiting: Ranma has two attendants for her bath and wardrobe, twin sisters Juniper and Jasmine. She later gains Sung Ya as her assistant after being formally appointed Castellan, and it's mainly because the girl's father is a major politic player.
- Manipulative Bitch: More than a few people warn Ranma about Setarial. Yes, the goddess wants to protect her city, yes, she gives Ranma the power and information the martial artist needs to survive, but everyone can see she's not a neutral party. At the very least, her plotting to give a Solar Exalt a throne against the Realm's policies implies she doesn't like the current world order very much.
- Mistaken for Romance: People in the streets apparently believe Ryouga is Ranma's consort — since a lot of Lunar-Solar bonded pairs get married to each other, it's easy to see why they would think so. Ranma is not amused since she firmly slotted Ryouga in the "friendly if vitriolic about it" category, while Ryouga is more ambivalent on the matter courtesy of past memories messing with his head.
- Not What It Looks Like: Ranma, if you don't want for people to assume Ryouga is your consort, maybe you should abstain from sitting on his lap when you are interrogating him, hm?
- Parents as People: Nodoka does love Ranma, but she's realistically awkward around him after being absent from his life for a very long time and she's also a mite unnerved by his Jusenkyo curse; wondering how she's supposed to deal with a son who happens to switch genders occasionally.
- Past-Life Memories: Both Ranma and Ryouga are Dreaming of Times Gone By. The Lunar is rather distressed when he has flashbacks, mainly because it forces him to see Ranma in a romantic light and he's not okay with that.
- Perception Filter: Setarial's main servant can shapeshift into a perfectly ordinary crow, doing perfectly ordinary crow things. It makes for an unsettling surprise when she lifts the filter.
- Reincarnation Romance: Deconstructed with Ryouga whose Lunar Exaltation forces to dream about its previous holder's firmly unplatonic feelings towards the woman who held Ranma's Solar Exaltation. He's deeply unnerved by the possibility of falling for Ranma courtesy of their complicated, messy history, he doesn't even know if he's falling for Ranma or her Exaltation's previous holder, and Ranma herself isn't too hot about treating Ryouga as anything but a friend.
- Shapeshifter Mode Lock: As Ranma was in her female form when she was displaced in Creation and Exalted as a Dawn-caste Solar, the Jusenkyo curse's destruction left her stuck as a woman. She's pretty unhappy about it and asks Setarial to teach her gender-swapping spells when she hears of it.
- She Is the King: Ranma firmly insists on being named Castellan of Greyfalls rather than Queen or Princess, courtesy of her gender issues (and also because she cannot stand royalty).
- Tastes Like Purple: The translation from Earth to Creation is interesting — described as "burbling pink", "tasting the sight of water falling upwards", "seeing the tartness of an orange" or "the taste of a flat note".
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Ryu Kumon and Kodachi feel deeply awkward about working with Ranma to protect Greyfalls when they made several attempts to kill her in the past, and she's emphatically pissed when she lays eyes upon them for the first time. Nonetheless, she's pragmatic enough to use everything and everyone around her in order to survive.
- This Is Gonna Suck: As Setarial explains Greyfalls needs a new ruler to survive after losing any affiliation with the Realm, Ranma wearily comments that she's not going to like what the goddess is about to say. Sure enough, Setarial wants for her to take the throne — and knowing Ranma's major problem with authority...
- Trapped in Another World: A prospect that causes a lot of turmoil among the displaced Terrans, since they have no idea if going back home is possible and if they ought to make a new life for themselves in Creation.
- Twin Theme Naming: The maidservants Juniper and Jasmine from the Scintillating River Palace.
- Unwanted False Faith: People in Greyfalls carry small pictures of their new Lady Castellan, and it's mentioned to be the kind of small pictures one uses for praying. A displaced Terran comments on Ranma not being happy with it if she learned of the practise.
- In the Rathess sidestory, Kasumi notes the descendants of the Dragon Kings are borderline worshipful towards Nodoka for being a Twilight-caste Solar and eager to serve her, and she's rather uneasy about it.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: As Kodachi breaks down over everything she did as a prideful, spoiled Rich Bitch, Ranma reminds her that the Unconquered Sun — the Embodiment of Virtue himself — thought she was worthy of Exaltation, meaning he saw something good and pure within Kodachi and she ought to try to live up to it.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: When Ranma grumps about people wanting her as Greyfalls' new ruler, Ryouga cheerfully points she kinda slaughtered their resident garrison so that makes her responsible for the city's protection, "you broke it, so you bought it".
