Subject: [FFML] Re: [fanfic][R1/2] Temptress Prologue (fwd)
From: Miashara
Date: 10/2/2000, 1:14 PM
To: ffml@fanfic.com
CC: sommer@3rdm.net

From: Miashara <s2mlmill@titan.vcu.edu>
To: sommer@3rdm.net
Cc: ffml@fanfic.com
Subject: Re: [FFML] [fanfic][R1/2] Temptress Prologue


I waited about a day, and this didn't appear on the FFML. If it shows up
twice, you all have my apologies.


On Sun, 1 Oct 2000, DB Sommer wrote:

Something I replied to within a day. Why? Thats below.
 
Experimenting with my style again:

Aw hell.

xxxxxxxxxxx

"In all of nature, there is one universal truth that applies to every 
race in the animal kingdom: the female is always the deadlier 
of the species."

Save only the Botswannian Assassin Wombats, but they're a special case.

--Solomon Paine


Prologue


"Whoa. Did you hear what happened to her?"

Words said unthinkingly, spontaneous in nature as they form from 
the cacophony of thoughts that make up the mind and emerge almost
instantly from the mouth. When 'restraint' is a word that is 
difficult to pronounce, and certainly not understood, never will one
know honesty in a truer form. 

May as well mention this now. Without hard returns, this comes across as
all messed up in PINE, for the three of us stuck using it. Read it anyway
of course, but thought you would want to be aware.

"I can't believe she got dumped like that."

"I'm not surprised. I wouldn't wanna marry her."

Yes, but you're not a weavil.

But not now. Not yet.

"Some guy ran off with her dowry."

Up until here I hoped and thought it was set as a surprise beginning after
volume 38.

Adults have the benefit of experience, learning from past pains and forging 
armor to protect themselves from those insults whose wicked barbs dig
deeper and reach into places that no physical weapon could ever touch. Though

But then, rare are the people who shoot you in the lymph system with a
howitzer.

no matter how strong and mighty the armor is, it can always be destroyed

strong and mighty bring to me an image of offense. Considering we're
talking armor here, I didn't quite seem to fit. Enduring and resiliant
perhaps? Of course, if you're intending for that to be sound slightly off,
that would work too.

by a single word employed in just the right place at just the right
time. Flawed creatures are incapable of creating perfect things.

I am so not going to get into this. 

Actually wait, I will. 

Later.


Children lack such protection and must suffer fully each and every jab and 
thrust, learning through such gauntlets how to protect themselves from 
others, as well as mastering how to inflict that self-same pain when the 
urge/desire/need forms and there is not enough urge/desire/need to
prevent them from being used so that the 
cycle might be perpetuated once again. 

Given the subject of the previous sentence and that you said "such
protection" I assumed this refered to the armor in the above sentence. The
same armor which you just went into the fallability of in such detail. But
given the falibility of such armor, they can't protect themselves from
others, not as much as you say they can. Looks to be a contradiction.

Ah, the wonderful era of growing up that all are forced to enjoy/suffer 
through.

You've a lot of these dualities in rapid succession. I think the effect
would be a bit stronger were you to use them more sparingly.

Welcome to a moment in the childhood of Ukyou Kuonji.

Please discard all cigarettes and make sure your tray tables are in the
upright position. We'll be landing for our final docking at Angst after
making stops at Grief and Saddening Introspection. The inflight movie,
Rejection.

 
Over and over again and again, words expressed in a variety of different 
ways but with identical meanings.

I think you're showing this pretty well and don't need to mention it
explicitly.

And when the degradation seems to twist into eternity, sometimes all 
that is left is to react. To accept and believe the words, and form the
majority of one's life as a basis from them, or to-

And we get to the crux of the matter. Up until now, you really just
restated your point, a veiw of part of human nature, over and over again.
Might want to snip it a little shorter and not narrate to us what you're
showing.
 
"Liar! That's not true! I am a girl! A real girl! I'll show you! 
I'll be the prettiest and nicest and bestest girl there is! All of the
other girls will be jealous of me because I'll be a better girl than 
they are! And all of the boys will like me and not want to leave me! 
I'll make them all like me! You'll be sorry you ever said those mean 
things about me!"

And having said that, we see where this will be going. 

Basic defense and return attack unleashed, Ukyou turned and ran, the 
vow spoken etching itself forever into the first layer of armor that the
girl was even now weaving to protect her from those tormenting words the 
others had used against her.

Now, given your big thing about how armor is invariably flawed, we can
safely predict that at some point in the course of events, this armor will
shatter mightily. However, again reffering to the above bit on armor, we
know that it will be damn nigh impossible, only breaking when the shit
really hits the fan. 

"Just you wait and see, and I'll show all of you!

"I'll show everyone!"

And then Ukyo ran off to become a stripper. Cest la vie.


Time does many things. Heals. Hurts. Scars. It means different things 
to different people as their meager existence passes during it. But the
one thing it does to everyone equally is that it passes.

Uh, how does time pass to people?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A yawn found itself escaping Ranma's lips. In response, the young man 
began twirling a pencil around between his fingers and forced himself to
at least try to listen to the droning voice of his homeroom teacher. It 
would not have been so difficult if the man could talk in anything other 
than a monotone that would have bored a fire into extinguishing itself. 
About the only time the teacher raised his voice was to send someone out 
into the hall; a situation Ranma had found himself experiencing all too 
many times in the past. He vowed if fate was going to have him holding a 
couple of buckets again, it was not going to be because he dozed off in 
class.

Stock, though brief, bit about Ranma not being a good student. Just once
I'd like to see Ranma paying attention.

Looking over his shoulder, he noticed Akane steal a glance in his 
direction, then look back towards the front of the class, her interest 
obviously piqued. The pencil was placed back upon the desk as he
returned his attention to the front of the class.

Ranma was surprised to see the teacher seem almost nervous as he looked 
to the open door that led to the hallway, then nod his head towards 
someone just out of sight from the position Ranma had in his seat. 
Taking a deep breath of air, the teacher adjusted his tie and said 
in a loud, unusually authoritative voice, "Class, stand. I want to 
introduce to you a new transfer student."

It's Dee Bee Sommeru! The new style, blatant and amazingly stupid SI!

All eyes in Homeroom 1-H of Furinkan High School followed the teacher's 
stare

What about the closed ones?

The figure passed through the doorway and into the classroom itself, 
coming into view for all to see. She moved slowly, but with a graceful, 
fluid motion that suggested she were gliding across the tiled floor 
instead of merely walking across it. Her outfit was the standard
uniform all of the girls at Furinkan wore, but her bearing as she

Only she had cut the fabric over the breasts out in keeping with her
motto of "I'll show them all!" 

approached the class made it appear that she was dressed in an elegant 
gown that molded to her form perfectly. Her every movement cried out for 
attention, though subtly, rather than overtly.

As the sign strapped to her back saying, "Worship me Fools!" managed to
cover overt quite well.

At last she spoke. "Greetings. My name is Ukyou Kuonji. It's a pleasure to meet you all."

Yep.

Of all the men in the room, only Ranma had remained impassive to the girl's appearance. But all of that changed the instant her name passed her lips. His head jerked up; a reaction that did not go unnoticed by Akane.

Because he's gay, duh.
 
"It can't be," Ranma murmured under his breath. Memories conflicted with one another at what was supposedly 'known' and the obvious evidence before his eyes. Familiarity hammered at his memory as he carefully looked the newcomer over, trying to reconcile the image of a boy from his youth with the obvious symbol of femininity before him. Perhaps it was nothing more than a coincidence; it was the only explanation that made sense.

Well, some transvestites are down right scary. Look at Tsubasa and What's
his name.

A pencil in Akane's hand snapped in half as she absorbed every intent stare Ranma was shooting the new girl. Of course he would react the same way every other guy in the room was; he was a stupid boy, after all. Ranma could do whatever he wanted to that Ukyou girl, and Akane wouldn't care in the slightest.

You kow, considering Ranma's muttering underhis breath to himself and
staring what could probably be considered either stark disbelief or shock,
I think you could branch out from the stock "Akane is jealous of the new
girl who got ranma's attention" and hit "Akane is curious over what made
Ranma so suprirsed. That does happen a few times in the source.

The teacher closed his mouth as he realized he was staring at the new 
girl. Again. He knew his reaction was highly improper, the girl was less 
than half his age, but he was still a man. "There is a seat next to 
Miss Tendou over there." He pointed towards the empty chair and desk. 
"Please be seated and we'll begin class."

Hmm. Teacher's a dirty old man. Who else do we know who's a...nevermind.
Actually, I think it would be funny if the teacher was so boring, even he
didn't notice Ukyo's sexual attraction. Really prove him to be
uninteresting.


Still moving with a casual, yet captivating, gait, Ukyou made her way 
towards the seat the teacher had indicated. She flashed a wider smile 
towards each of the boys she passed, riveting their attention to her 
even after she had moved her smile on to another. It was not until she 
came to Ranma's desk, nearly across for her own, that she paused and
gave her most winning smile yet. 

The one shaped like a donut.

"It's been a long time, Ranchan. Surprised to see me?"

Not really. I just expected to you to wear more clothes.

Ranma's jaw dropped low enough to almost hit his desk. He paled slightly 
as he mouthed barely audibly, "Ucchan?"

Surprising reaction from Ranma.

Through the sudden haze of anger that formed when Ranma was looking 
slack-jawed at the newcomer, Akane would have sworn that, for the
briefest of moments, Ukyou's smile went from heartwarming to feral, but 
then it disappeared so quickly that the youngest Tendou daughter was 
certain she had made a mistake. Besides, there were more important 
things to worry about, like why Ranma was acting as much of a jerk as 
every other guy in the room. 

Again, the jealousy bit.

And for Ukyou, who felt her heart skip a beat at Ranma's obvious 
attention towards her, she knew that things were about to come full 
circle at last.

She wondered to whose soul Heaven should have mercy.

Neither. Given the author, you're all screwed. And figuratively at that.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

All I have written out so far. Let me know what you think

We don't. 

Hmm. Haven't seen this done before. I'm taking it to be a serious
bordering on melodramatic one? I like melodrama, written melodrama at any
rate, so that looks to be all to the good. 

The whole author commenting on what was going on as you showed it bit just
didn't really work for me. Perhaps narration which raises questions?
Phrase your description of events so that your points will pop up in the
reader's mind <and in my case, uh, lets not go there> on their own? Again,
you seemed to be showing and telling. 
 
You have my interest, though I'm wondering what with all the other things
your writting, how quickly anything will get done.

Why did I reply to this so quicky? It's short. Thats basically the long
and the short of it.

Miashara
-Who has just rediscovered why he hates C&Cing in PINE so much.
 






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