From:        Zen, databank@mindspring.com

       Gosunkugi immediately turned a whiter shade of pale. 

"Follow...Ranma?"

Ooooh, this line is beautiful indeed.... ^_^

Not bad, true. :)

Zen likes it... your dialogue is getting even better!  The characterization
is excellent as well, though Zen notices that the reporters are not telling
Noriko that Ranma tried to save their sorry butts. *sigh*  Ahh well, that's
the media for you!

Ahem.

Actually, that's probably the biggest problem I had with this part; one 
of the things we had drummed into us (at least where I went to j-school) 
was the need to be as fair and impartial as possible, and get as many 
sides to the story as possible. I don't see any of them, especially 
Noriko, try to do that. (For example, Noriko doesn't question Suzuki or 
Gos further about their story, nor does she try and find witnesses to 
what happened after they were knocked out.) 

Then again, they're only high-school journalists; the mind control 
probably hasn't taken full effect yet. <g> Seriously, I think Raphael 
does need to take this into account; possibly a discussion with the 
journalism teacher. (Is that how it works at the high school level? At 
KU, the semester of reporting at the university paper is an actual course 
titled 'Advanced Reporting', with one weekly meeting to go over the 
stories of the past week.) 

Zen likes the portrayal of Ranma - and the muffins were priceless.

Yes. :)

Considering the absence of spelling errors, glaring grammatical mistakes or
semantic problems, and the definite *presence* of good descriptions, tight
dialogue and well paced action, Zen cannot really imagine why you would be
dissatisfied with it.

Well, the technical aspects were certainly better. :) Though I would 
still like to see a blank line between paragraphs; makes it much easier 
to read electronically. :) 

I think the thing that bothered me the most was the way Noriko seemed so 
pig-headedly fixated on the One True Cause of the paper's problems. :) 
For someone as intelligent as she apparently is (I liked the bit at the 
beginning: "STOP SPREADING RUMORS" <g>), she's too unwilling to look for 
all the ramifications of the paper's situation -- once she found herself 
a not-quite-scapegoat in Ranma, she seemed satisfied to let it rest there 
without checking out the rest of the situation.

Tell Zen, does Noriko have any Kunou blood in her?

Zen will be eagerly awaiting the next installment.

Now, to borrow from Noriko, Get your butt in gear and write more of it! ^_^

Seconded. :)

(Sorry, Raphael, for not doing a full C&C on this one yet; I set it aside 
to do when I finished the rest of the message backlog, then saw this and 
couldn't help responding. <Sigh>)



Travis Butler
(The Professor, formerly of Myth and Magick!, Lawrence, KS;
 tbutler@tfs.net, now from the Wandering Powerbook;
 <http://www.tfs.net/personal/tbutler/>;
 Mac page <http://www.tfs.net/business/tbutler/>)

...Cats are the proof of a higher purpose to the universe.