Subject: [FFML] Re: [fic][Ranma] AMAW: Compromising Situations 3/3
From: HKMiller
Date: 11/10/2002, 10:48 AM
To: Vincent Seifert , ffml@anifics.com


     Ryoga and Happosai were waiting in the tearoom when the
wedding party came in.  Happosai, amazingly, appeared to be in
his "stern and proper" mode; he hadn't broached the bottles,

So your Happi doesn't qualify as the go-between?  He'd have
been at the wedding itself if he did.


     They returned in a few minutes; now Kasumi was dressed in a
magnificent outer kimono, resplendent with brocade and embroidery
in symbols of good fortune. 

Ah, the oiro-naoshi, where the bride changes into the uchikake. 




     Ranma was in charge.  It was a strange feeling.

Heh.


     "Stupid Ranma," she whispered.  "Stupid Father.  Stupid
Saotome-no-ojisan.  Stupid Nodoka-sama.  Stupid Kasumi-oneechan."
She paused.  "Stupid Ak--"  Her voice broke, and she swiped
angrily at something on her cheek.

Nice paragraph here, I thought.


     Ryoga suddenly stood up and Akane looked at him, startled.
He stared back down at her with an expression of determination on
his rugged face, one fist clenched.  "I'll get P-chan for you,"
he vowed.  "Just wait right there."  He leaped down the steps
into the yard and ran towards the house.  Akane's eyes widened.

Just amazing.  Yes, Ryouga is stupid enough to interpret Ranma's
advice this way, but it really IS the very worst thing he could
be doing here.



     Ryoga disappeared into the night sky, a shooting star going,
as usual, in the wrong direction.

Before reading this, I think I'd have said that there couldn't be any
new, compelling way to do the P-Chan revelation; that it's been done
enough times, by enough masters, that it would be pointless to
seriously try.  But this is a new, compelling version.  Timing it
now, and having Ryouga voluntarily, eagerly reveal it himself,
make for a very uncomfortable combination.


meeting Ranma's just as Kasumi picked the stray grain of rice off
of his cheek and popped it into her own mouth.  Akane broke off,
the color draining from her face.  Her lips moved slightly,
speechless, and a look of such anguish came over her features
that it needed only an instant to etch itself on Ranma's memory,
the instant before she turned away and staggered out again.

The way this scene accords with what you'd previously written
in AMAW was particularly amazing, I though; just the point where
most authors take liberties with the chronologies in their earlier
works.

Very compelling description.


     Ranma sat petrified with shock, his eyes fixed on the
glistening spots left on the hardwood floor where Akane had been.
He knew what fallen teardrops looked like.  He'd recognized the
expression on her face: heartbreak.  The magnitude of his error
crashed onto him in a mighty wave.

Another good paragraph.



     If he'd known that, he would have defied mother and fathers
alike, fought legions of Ryogas and Shinnosukes and pansy foreign
princes to keep her, turned all the would-be fiancees down flat
and to hell with the consequences, protected her from lethal
rivals, fearsome monsters, and lecherous spirits as long as
breath remained in his body, traveled the mountains and deserts
and seas of the world to stay at her side.  Never offered
compromise, never accepted defeat.

This, OTOH, in my opinion shouldn't tbe needed.  If you've
done your job right up to now, the reader understands all this.
(I take this to be mostly authorial voice, as this Ranma doesn't
seem this articulate, but it may not be clear in your own mind.)



from, but to abandon Kasumi?  She'd gotten up early the morning
of her own wedding night, folded their clothes, filled the furo,
seen that he had everything he needed waiting in the bathroom,
cleaned up the tearoom, and then cooked him the best breakfast he
could remember... just because she wanted to please him.  Because
she wanted to be a good wife.  She looked like she'd been pleased
by his reactions, too.  It meant something to her.  She had a lot
invested in this marriage: her virginity, obviously; her pride,
different though it might be from the pride of a warrior; her
feelings, even if she didn't love him the way... the way Akane
did.

Good again.  Might be worthwhile reminding us somewhere that
Ranma goes off-track on seeing tears from just about any woman,
even Shampoo or Kodachi.  Once convinced that any prospective
action would do the same to Kasumi, it's right out-of-bounds.



made itself at home, an undeniable and comforting reminder that
there was an upside to this situation.

And that's the other thing.  As much as he wants to, Ranma _can't_
feel as bad as Akane about this, since there _are_ upsides to
it for him.  And that just makes him feel even more guilty, both
now and at the time of AMAW, seven years or so hence.



     Hidden in the far corner of the yard behind the dojo, curled
around her pain like a small, wounded animal, Akane wept quietly.
Her tears sprinkled fragments of tile and concrete, debris from
her breaking exercises.

I'm not sure why, but I don't feel quite as hurt by this paragraph,
or your descriptions in general, as I feel reading other authors,
even with similar word choices.  You could add something about
ice on her spine or hot pain in her throat, but would that make
any difference?  I'm not sure.  Maybe it's because I know how
all this comes out; that there is no suicide on the horizon, merely
a suboptimal status quo of melancholy.




fiancee again... and she hadn't, like an idiot, because she
couldn't imagine any pain worse than the humiliation of doing
those things.

     Well, she didn't have to imagine it now.

Especially effective, IMO.


     "Hey, is that my laundry?" Nabiki asked, meeting them in the
hall.

     "No, I'm afraid not, Nabiki," Kasumi said sweetly.

     "Rats.  Any idea when you'll get to it, then?"

     Ranma frowned, but before he could say anything Kasumi spoke
again in the same sweet tone.  "I expect I'll be too busy to wash
your clothes for quite a while.  A pity, isn't it?"

Heh.  This is another partial explanation for Kasumi's actions, and
it's telling about Nabiki, too:  she's been out of high school for a
year, away at college, and she's still relying on Kasumi to do her
laundry?


     "Should we go by Ucchan's and make sure nothing's happened
to them, do you think?"

Earlier it seems that Kasumi had bought into Nodoka's illusions
hook, line, and sinker.  This seems more ambiguous, somehow.
Kasumi is expecting to see that something's changed at Ucchan's
as well, maybe that it too is closed.  Does she think that Ranma
has arranged for his mistresses to leave town so as not to
embarrass her?  Or does she think that Ranma did a more
Lawson/Eddy thing here:  defiantly confronting the Chinese/Ukyou
to make them leave her (Kasumi) alone?  She's not going
to let Ranma know which she thinks, of course; but that's
not the same as not letting us, the readers, know.

And phrasing the above as a question allows Ranma to decide
against, as he would have, presumably, in other scenarios.



shopkeepers and passersby called and waved to Kasumi, and she
carefully introduced Ranma as her husband to everyone she
exchanged words with.  

Another of the reasons why Kasumi said "yes"...

Some congratulated him on his good
fortune, though, and a couple of guys sounded envious.

Well, Kasumi _is_ most Japanese men's ideal wife (which is
why more and more Japanese women are saying they're not
interested in marriage).



     "I know.  I just figured I might as well go now.  

"That way I might be able to get some sleep."


     "I... see.  Yes, that certainly makes sense."  Kasumi
hesitated, then said, "Do you want someone to go with you for the
first few days?  Father, or maybe Ranma?"

Given the sensitivity Kasumi showed the night before, she has
to know what might happen if Ranma indeed went.  Which makes
this an incredibly generous offer of hers.  She can't be certain
that Akane will turn it down, even if she is certain that it is in
Akane's best interest to turn it down.


     The pain in her voice drew Kasumi a half-step forward, her
arms lifting a little, and that was all it took.  Akane gulped
and stumbled towards the comfort of her eldest sister's embrace
as she had not since she was a little girl, her eyes filling with
tears and her throat with sobs.  Kasumi caught her and tapped the
door behind her with one heel; it swung shut and clicked.

Nice scene.


and the train began to move.  Ranma searched for her face in the
windows, but couldn't find it, and then the train was gone.

Excellent last sentence to this scene.


     Sure enough, Ucchan's was just another storefront the next
day.  Shampoo, Mousse, and Cologne were gone; he hadn't seen
Ryoga since the wedding party; Kodachi had "departed"; Akane was
off at college, and Kuno had headed north after Akane as soon as
he got out of the hospital.  Now Ukyo and Konatsu had left too,
and he was reduced to teasing Happosai just to get some exercise.

And this, of course, is the other reason for the outcome we see in
AMAW:  Nerima is now intensely boring for Ranma, and he would,
sooner or later, start going off on those "training journeys" even
if there were no women waiting for him, from sheer boredom.



     "A Man Among Women" was inspired by a question Dave Roeder
asked me: what serious and in-character scenario could be
contrived in which ALL the "fiancees" got Ranma? 

Still no Nabiki, though ;)


* this story, "Compromising Situations".

* "Triangles", about Ranma's first "training trip" to Kansai and
China (in preproduction).

Good choice ot title, I think:  Ranma-Ukyou-Konatsu; Ranma-
Shampoo-Mousse; Ranma-Ukyou-Kasumi; Ranma-Shampoo-
Kasumi.  You've at least four to explore.


I expect to tell all of these stories eventually, and then the
original AMAW will be merely an epilogue.

Unfortunately, for such an original story, that does seem to
be its fate.  If I may make a suggestion, though:  either
place the stories on your web page in the order you wrote
them, rather than the order they appear, or clearly document
on your web page, somehow/somewhere, what the order
you wrote them is, so that readers can go back and read
them in that order later.

There are numerous cases in SF of this, ground-breaking
stories later reduced to pointless epilogues, or even 
of half the mystery of stories pointlessly dissipated by
going back and writing preludes.  At least, I suggest, allow
your readers to read your stories either way.


Anyway, very good work, as usual.  The only possible
improvements I can suggest would be fairly hard to
implement, as they have to do with Akane's and Nabiki's
characterizations.  To me, the scenes mentioned above
disturb my suspension of disbelief, but not enough to
kill it entirely.  Whether that reaction, from one reader, is
enough for you to do any rework is, as always, up to you.



             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'