On Fri, 6 Sep 1996, George Mori wrote:

At 02:14 PM 9/6/96 +1000, you wrote:

        Before, I start let me kinda explain my train of thought on the
wwhole picture issue. Nabiki didn't suddenly decide to take nudes of Akane
and sell them it was more af a gradual change. I do remember putting a line
that should've explained it. Anyway, my logic was that Kuno liked the
pictures he saw, and kept buying similar ones for a while, but slowly he
gets tired of the same pics. He wants a bit more. So she gets Akane in
'Normal' clothes. Kuno wants more, so she get shots of Akane in a bra...etc.
I never saw Nabiki dealing in photos after Volume one, so I just kind of
brought it to a semi-logical end. I set out to do a 'what if' fic. I think I
did it pretty well. I'll probably put this in the next episode. That was the
original plan anyway.

A valid enough view, it's just not really shown at all in "Facades".

[snip]

        Well, true, but read the above explanation. She's slowly gone to
this low to keep getting money from Kuno. It's a bit of a dulling conscience
thing. First time you do somthing wrong, you feel REALLY guilty, each
consecutive time you do it it becomes easier and easier. Either way the
pictures were not easier for Nabiki.

Why??... For the Nabiki shown in the Manga to go this road, she would 
need money so badly she would have to forgoe the pleasure of manipulating 
money out of Kunou for services not worth what she charges, which seems 
to be half the reason she does it to me.

Nabiki finds AKane in bath and takes pictures of her instead.  Given that 
Nabiki has built this place and gone there, I have no problems with her 
taking these pictures.  I think it is OOC for a "normal" Nabiki, but your 
Nabiki has already deviated from the normal enough to take the pictures - 
however that she takes themn without hesitation or qualms is... disturbing.

        Well, I don't say she did without qualms or hesitation. She
questions the morality of what she did quite a few times in the fic.
basically I think she felt that once she was rid fo them the problems would
be over. They werent and she didn't feel at all better. 

In your story she went to the hide, snapped the photo's and trotted off 
to sell them.  The first sign of remorse she shows is during the sale.  
You don't really convey the attitude you want in the story.

[snip]

        I hope I explained the stimuli earlier on, so that's why she sold
them. She felt really guilty afterwards. She had abandoned her morals. And
the realization of that was one of the reasons she ran away from home. 

Ah... in my opinion the stimuli for taking and selling the photo's is 
simply never really shown in this fic.  There's no sign that Nabiki needs 
the money or that Kunou is demanding more "revealling" pictures for his 
Yen.  Nabiki seems to simply take the pictures and sell them because 
that's what she does.

In what follows Nabiki reacts and behaves in a perfectly believeable 
fashion for a "normal" NAbiki, however the emotions shown  strike me as 
jarringly out-of-place in the Nabiki that so blithely spied on her 
sister and then rushed off to sell nude photo's of her to Kunou.  This 
inconsistency in Nabiki's behaviour is the biggest flaw in the story 
since it is never adequately reconciled.  Nabiki should either be far 
more reluctant to sell the photo's *OR* far less upset at them being put 
on public display (If her reaction was "This is going to cause me 
problems" instead of "Poor Akane" her personality would be more 
coherent). 

        I'm not trying to make her an emotionless bitch. (IMO that is what
she is percieved as normally.) Having the pictures up for all to see,
knocked her guilt up to another level, adding anger to the fray as well. 

If anything you portray Nabiki as emotionally unstable.  

P.S.  The bit about the various martial artists in Nerima, it really 
doesn't fit with the rest of the fic.

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"The Major"                     |  "Funny Games, Strange Cartoons, Confusing
David Bateson                   |     Computers and too many Books!  No 
                                |     wonder you're weird."
major@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au     |       - My Sister.
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