>The line between two seasons was drawn, on this day, in the
contrasting tones
>between the slight chill of a breeze and the welcome warmth of the
sun. It was
>a time of transition, caring little for official dates scribed on manmade
>calendars that decide for one when Winter would end and Spring would begin.
I could be wrong, but I don't think winter and spring should be
capitalized.
My spell checker splits the difference, IIRC: winter and Spring. I'll look
into it further.
>A stronger gust lifted his hair, the sunlight catching and emphasizing a
>peppering of gray as he watched the pedestrians go by, seemingly
content only
>to observe and not participate. He was far more at home within the small,
>quieter patch of green.
I'd take out the "seemingly," assuming the phrase refers to Ryoga and
not the passers-by.
Agreed.
>Turning his head, he watched the approach of the woman, grumbling
sotto voce,
>her strong, petite hands wringing out her shirt. Like his mop of black, her
>fiery red hair was also showing its age: an off-center streak of pure white
Does he still have the enormous eyeballs too? ^_^
LOL! I recently re-read some of your spamfics, so this was well-timed. ^_^
>"Ryouga... she passed away seven years ago."
>
>"How?! What...?" Ryouga lapsed mute, staring at the white amongst
the red of
>Ranma's hair.
We don't get much reaction from Ryoga in this scene. How does *he* feel
about the death of the woman he used to sleep with?
Hrm, interesting way of putting it. Um, well, his initial shock is present, of
course, but I'm not sure Ranma gives him much of a chance to express more.
I'll review the passage and see what can be done.
>He looked at Ranma. "P-chan was getting old. The last year or so that I had
>the curse, almost my whole head as a pig was gray. I remember that a while
>later I fell ill for about a week, stayed in my tent almost the whole time,
>and then I accidentally splashed myself and nothing happened. I
guess Shampoo
>and Mousse probably experienced the same thing. Or if not yet, they will
>soon."
But what about Pantyhose? He seems to be the fly in the ointment here,
(as he so often is).
Aside from the fact that Tarou keeps his secrets, I'm assuming that since
Tarou's curse is an amalgram of several things, what's happened to Ryouga may
not happen to him, or maybe only parts of him die off... Ewww. :)
RANMA: Hey, uh, Tarou? Your #7 tentacle just, um, fell off.
TAROU-MONSTER: URRR!!! [Translation: SHUT UP, GIRLY BOY!]
:)
>Ryouga blinked at the two girls, both with flaming red hair, then
started to
>chuckle. The chuckle rose to gut-wrenching laughter when another
set of girls,
>identical to the first two, came in.
>
>"Yeah," Ranma said sheepishly, "two sets of twins, all of 'em
lookin' like my
>girl form."
Except that for them, the anime hair color is actually noticable. :)
:) Tsk, tsk.
BTW, just how identical are these girls? Are we talking carbon copies of
each other, or just overall general similarity? It'd be nice to have
some idea of the differences between them if the latter is the case --
and even if the former, there should be personality and mannerism
differences. Something other than just their names to differentiate
them.
My thought is that each twin is identical to each other, while either pair is
extremely close to the other. I'll review the clarity of that. As for
differentiating them, I rather thought they expressed their personalities
fairly well throughout. Atsuko and Ranko are the martial artists, with Ranko
adopting much of Ranma's mannerisms. Kimiko is nominally 'Kasumi'. Nodoka is
kind of the odd one out, but she gets her own, ah, point of distinction.
Atsuko calls Ranma 'Papa-san', Ranko is volatile, Kimiko is demur, and Nodoka
is largely the wallflower, unfortunately, but the story digs her out of that.
Do you still feel there needs to be more? I fear it may weigh the story down
too much.
>Their guest finally regained some control. "Side effect of the
curse, I take
>it," Ryouga chortled.
RANMA: More like a certain obsession with my female form on the writer's
part, I think....
ROEDER: Shut up! It's a perfectly logical possibility!
^_^
Ah, you know me too well. ^_-
Vince said I'd be taking some (hopefully) good-natured flak about that. :P
>"Remember, Atsuko-chan," Ranma called. "Ryouga's like a rock. If
he gets his
>hands on ya, you're done for. Keep your distance and keep your speed."
ATSUKO: Dad, rocks don't generally HAVE hands. And if they do, getting
them on you is no big deal. You really need to work on your metaphors.
RANMA: That ain't what I meant!
Point taken, Doug-- ERRR, Matt-- ERRRR, Gary. :)
>"Nabiki-obachan!" three of the girls cried out.
>
>"I'll get you a plate," Kimiko called.
>
>Ryouga noticed as Ranma became very quiet and very controlled. Nabiki
>sauntered in, her hair long and darker than it should've been for
her age, and
>blink-blinked.
It'd be nice to have a little more detail on the "quiet and controlled."
The current Ranma/Nabby relationship is described secondhand in the
dialog, but we don't actually get to see much of it.
Okay. I don't want to burden the storyflow with too much description of Ranma
and Nabs' interaction because like you pointed out, it's covered in later
dialogue. I'll see what can be done about the quiet and controlled bit though.
I can probably sneak a little interaction in to highlight it.
>He sighed and laughed Ranma's bitter laugh. "You couldn't talk to her about
>important things. She had this idea of how her life should go, down to the
>last detail. She made allowances for P-chan, of course, but that
really only
>made it more perfect for her. Does that make any sense?"
>
>"Yeah, I think I see what ya mean."
>
>"When we got down to the nitty-gritty, trying to accommodate each
other, build
>something together, it really fell apart. Other than the
requirement that her
>husband defeat her champion pig, her grandfather catered to her
every whim. He
>ruined her, really."
This is certainly a better way of getting rid of Akari than you usually
see... either "Akari? Oh. A sixteen-ton weight fell on her. Tragic,
really." Or simply "Akari? Who's that?"
hehehe. Well, this is supposed to be drama, not Warner Brothers. :)
>"Hmmm, this is gonna get embarrassin'. When your mother was alive,
she, ah...
>Let's just say that she kept all of me very happy and satisfied,
er, includin'
>my, um, well--"
>
>"Your girl-side?" Atsuko offered with a tiny bit of a smirk.
>
>"... Yeah."
>
>"PAPA!!" "I didn't need to know THAT!!" Nodoka didn't say
anything, but just
>stared.
NODOKA JR.: (thinks) He's not being manly. It's katana time, I'm afraid.
Soon.
The inherent problem with being someone's namesake within the Saotome family.
^_^
>The handle wasn't locked, so she opened the door a crack and put
her mouth to
>the opening. "Hibiki-san?" Nothing.
>
>Pushing the door fully open, she saw that the room was empty.
>
>"Oh, great."
RYOGA: That's right, I'm outta here! Another fic where I get matched
with Ranma? No way! I'm gone! Church of Ranko and Ryoga, bite me!
ROEDER: Wait! Come back! I'll let you have all *five* Tendo women!
I'll... oh, bugger.
UKYOU: Someone say 'bugger'?! Oops! I mean "ARF!"
RANMA: URK!!
KLEPPE: Go away, Ukyou. You're a dog, remember? Dogs don't do that kind of
thing. Here's a nice Milk Bone.
:P
>Ranma sighed. With a colder bed since, she had compromised by just
wearing a
>long T-shirt and nothing else. She'd further discovered as she'd
gotten older
>that she slept better as a woman. She wondered if that was because
girls just
>slept easier than guys anyway -- she'd have to ask Kasumi about that -- or
KASUMI: Oh my! Er... How would I possibly know?
RANMA: What's this?
KASUMI: Ah heh.... Goodness! A stash of instant nanniquan? Why, how
could that have possibly gotten in my room? ^_^;;;;;;;;;
Ooooh, dear.
RANMA: So what are you implying, Kasumi? You be the man to me being female?
Aren't you already married?!
KASUMI: [tittering] Ummm, well, Tsubasa-kun is so strange in the area of, ah,
duties.
RANMA: ...
FFML: ...
(Since we're on the gender issue, anyway, why not take the affected with the
real? :)
>Blinking, Ranma said, "Well, what's the problem? You and your twin are old
>enough. What's his name?"
>
>Nodoka face fell and she burst into tears, turning to her twin.
>
>"What?! What did I say?!" Ranma asked, looking at everyone.
>
>Atsuko hugged Nodoka and patted her on the back. "Papa," she said tiredly,
>"it's not a 'he', it's a 'she'. Nodoka likes girls."
RANMA: You're a lesbian? Cool! Lesbians are always happy, loving people,
especially when they're doign male-gratifying fan service....
GIRLS: DAAAAAD!
NO-CHAN: [taps the microphone] For all those who think I was created for
fanservice, please note that I was born this way.
HECKLER: You mean created!
NO-CHAN: Same thing.
^_-
>Ranma sighed at the overblown honorific, but declined to address it at the
>moment. Tipped off, Mikado had returned to his home early one day to find
>Nodoka and Himiko in bed. He'd promptly disowned his daughter,
even over her
>mother's tears and pleading. He doubted that it had helped that
Nodoka was a
>Saotome. Ranma had heard that the Mikado's divorce would be
declared final in
>two months -- a brave act for a Japanese woman. He briefly wondered if he'd
>end up adopting Himiko's mother, as well.
Anyone we know? And why isn't she getting custody of Himiko? With Daddy
throwing her out, it would seem logical.
I don't think the mother can while still married to the clan head since the
clan head has disowned the daughter. Maybe after the divorce is final, but
that's still two months off, and Himiko *is* living with her lover. In the
interim, Himiko is without a family name - big problem, even for a short
amount of time.
>Ryouga turned back as she walked across the yard, and he mentally slapped
>himself for watching the sway of her hips and bosom before turning
away again
>and reaching up to hold his nose. Consequently, he missed seeing
her stumble
>as she stepped onto the engawa.
The what? Whussat?
Urrr. Veranda. Okay, okay. :D
>"My adopted daughter. Bit of a story there."
>
>"With you? No bet."
Better not be, or the readers will hit delete. :)
:j
>END CAST A SECOND LINE INTO THE SEA
I liked the ending bit with Ryoga and Ranma; much stronger, IMO, than if
they'd declared their love for each other or something like that.
Agreed. Love would be some distance down the road. Not impossible, but not
immediate either.
I
think this would've made a fine ending by itself. The other stuff with
the fishing rod and baby Miki seemed extraneous; I really didn't get the
point.
Purely from a story mechanics perspective, I agree. From a Ranma perspective,
I feel thinking of the koi rod first -- since Ryouga was going on about
guarantees -- THEN deciding that wasn't the way to go seems very
characteristic of how he operates, even the more, ah, mature version.
As far as Miki is concerned, I tried to create an atmosphere of Akane's spirit
actually being around when Ranma talks to her. And when he really, really
needed something from her, she managed to come through for him. Again, from
pure story mechanics, it's extraneous, but I think Ranma really needed a sign.
So, why not give him/her one?
I'd have liked to see more of each of the Saotome girls' individual
personality. Beyond the more... demographic... factors (one can cook,
one can't, one's a lesbian, etc.) they're pretty hard to tell apart.
Also, I think you're overplaying the "happy family" angle a bit too
much. Even families that are mostly happy and stable have their internal
conflicts and little things that get on each other's nerves.
Mmmm, yes, I would have also, but I'm not sure it wouldn't have bogged the
story down too much. *If* there's a sequel to this, I would definitely go
further into their personalities.
All in all, an enjoyable story, and certainly one of the better things
to come along on the list lately.
Thanks for the public C&C, Gary! I'm glad you liked it. BTW, how's Jeannie? :)
Ja!
Dave
*******************************************
D.F. Roeder
FanFiction - http://www.flash.net/~dfroeder/index.html