Sebastian Weinberg wrote:
: Nouma couldn't help but smile in the face of Shampoo's enthusiasm.
: He still felt embarrassed by his Olympic victory. He'd felt
: rather like an adult beating up on a room full of children.
Unless the Olympics and his winning in Cairo are one and the same
event, I'd completely drop the Olympic angle. It's overkill.
The Olympics took place in Cairo. I'll make that clearer.
: Nouma looked past Shampoo. Suddenly, he couldn't breathe.
Angus: Hey, did you see that?
Sebastian: See what?
Angus: That chubby, half-nude kid with the bow and arrow that
just streaked by. Bloody cheek! He could have hurt
someone with that thing.
Hehehehe. Nice to see Angus again. He and Jennifur hold a special place
in my heart. :)
Whoah, they really *do* live a rough life, in the valley of the
Amazons. Among normal people the same thing would have been
communicated with a simple touch, as a reminder to behave
yourself. Or is it just Khu Lon, who needs to be more forcibly
kept in check?
The latter. Khu Lon is rather high-spirited - think Shampoo mixed with
Kodachi.
: Ryoga bowed. "Nouma, it is good to see you again. How's the
: new job?" Unlike Father, Ryoga had understood Nouma's desire
: to do something besides martial
I dunno about the "father" this isn't *direct* introspection, so
I would have written this as "*his* father", i.e. third person.
Probably right. I'm trying to keep this from Nouma's perspective, but I
do think I'll need to replace most of the "Father"'s with "Ranma"'s. It
loses a little of the perspective that way, however. <sigh>
: "It's great. I love the work." Nouma turned to Akari. "How's
: life been for the Savior of the World?"
I guess he uses that title to tease her. Right?
Well, actually, I wrote this bit intending it to be the first time that
"Savior of the World" was associated with Akari. I kept writing more
and more background material to explain it, when I realized it was way
too much, and was bogging down this part of the story. So I snipped it
all out and turned it into "Interview".
This bit is all that remains of what used to be the background
material. I'm keeping it mostly to link "Magic" to "Interview" and, by
extension, TIL.
Oh, and this also tells you how long I've been working on this. :)
: Nouma smiled. "Don't feel that way, Aunt Akari. You still
: make the best BLT's I've ever tasted. I'd hate to have to
: live in a world without them."
"BLT's"?
Kun-chan had the same problem here. I didn't realize the abbreviation
was an American one. A BLT is a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.
I'll expand this.
: Ukyo shrugged. "Not all of the international ones do so
: well. I had to close the New York restaurant, but I've
: still got one in San Fransicso, as well as Hong Kong,
: Sydney, Singapore, Seoul, and Bangkok." She counted them
: off on her fingers, them beamed at Nouma. "I didn't
: really need to open them all over the place. I kind of
: stretched our resources, took a lot of risks, to do that.
: It was just a dream of mine, to one day have restaurants
: all over the world."
Waaah, I wanna have one here in Germany! C'mon, Duesseldorf and
Cologne (the city) would *fight* for the honour of having an
"Ucchan's" restaurant. :)
Kun-chan had me move the restaurant from Sydney to Melbourne. Someone
else had me add one to Honolulu. I guess I can add one to Duesseldorf,
too. If Zen asks me to put one on Phobos, though, I'm drawing the
line. :)
: He hadn't realized that Ryoga and Ukyo knew each other that
: well, although he really shouldn't have been surprised, since
: they had both been intimate parts of Ranma's life twenty-five
: years ago.
[raised brow] Hmmm...?
Naaah. Luckily Richard isn't *that* kind of guy.
Hey, Angus? @bap this guy for me, will ya? :)
Still? After all these years? Fully intentional almost-murder is
forgiven and forgotten but insanity isn't, even after it's been
treated?
Funny how society works, eh?
And yet another family that I want to know more about. This fic
needs to be very, *very* large to show all the people I wanna see.
:)
Can you say, "side stories"? ^_^
I'm actually planning on leaving the TIL universe after this story.
Doesn't mean, though, that my stupid brain won't force me to write
something. You should see the lemon it made me write. (ick)
: Mikanma did look surprised, but she also looked determined
: and angry, as if she wanted to take on the fear and fight
: it hand-to-hand.
Which fear? Her fear of what is before them?
Uh, yeah. This wasn't clear?
: With that, Ranma went over and sat down next to Akane, talking
: to her quietly. Mother hugged Father fiercely, tears streaming
: down her face.
I still have a problem with the format of this tale. Most of it
is told from Nouma's point of view, which is fine. But it is
*also* written more or less in third person narration, which
clashes with the sudden insertion of labels like "Father" and
"Mother" for Ranma and Akane. this has to be smoothed out.
Either you tell this *completely* from Nouma's point of view,
which would mean first person and is probably not what you want,
or you use "Father" and "Mother" only in *direct* introspection
into Nouma's thoughts.
I know, I know. I still don't have an answer for this. <sigh>
: Kodachi began to say something to Nouma, but for some reason
: his attention was focused on an intense debate in Chinese
: taking place a few feet away. Nouma had minored in Asian
: Languages, and spoke Mandarin decently, if not exactly
: fluently. He was able to follow their conversation.
The Tendou Wunderkind strikes again. How about having him *not*
excel in something? You could emphasize that he is actually a
human being, by making his knowledge of Mandarin rudimentary,
instead of Not-quite-fluent? It could have been a required course
that he barely passed with lots of work, so that he now is able to
more or less follow the conversation, but couldn't hope to ever
take part.
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but in the first draft he *was* fluent in
Mandarin. <sigh> There's a plot necessity to his perfection, but I am
trying to tone it down a little. Your suggestion here makes sense.
This, of course, assumes that Nouma is *meant* to be an actual
human being. The evidence against it seems to pile up. :)
Well, a really, really good human being. :)
: While I'm at it, I'll marry your sister. I'm not really into
: that sort of thing, but we musn't play favorites, must we?"
:D :D :D Nice to see that Kodachi also has a sense of humour and
isn't all tragic and stuff. ;)
:) This is my favorite bit in the story so far.
: "Why he would want to afflict you with the curse is
: quite beyond my ability to comprehend."
Perhaps he figures there's a way to pass on the "Savior of Lost
Causes" mantle without actually cursing his son.
Ranma's plans get spelled out in a later chapter.
Oh, and stop reading my mind. :)
Ah, so Mikanma will at some crucial point save Nouma from certain
doom. Perhaps when he is taken over by the dark side of the
force, she will beat sense into him again, in a way that
symbolically harkens back to their fightas about entering the
house. That's how these things usually work. :)
Oh, are you so wrong. You are so, so wrong. Not even close. <big anime
sweatdrop> Not even in the ballpark.
: "Tendo Nouma."
Angus: [in a Darth Vader get-up] "Luke."
I was actually thinking more of Lord Foul taunting Thomas Covenant, but
this works, too. :)
: "Tendo Nouma. I will devour your sister and I will devour
: your father and I will devour you."
Sebastian: Jeez, someone has a hell of an appetite.
Oh, if only you knew. :)
Angus: "Listen to your dark side, Luke..."
Sebastian: Baka.
:)
: Whatever it was he'd been dragged into, it promised to
: be horrifying. He had the feeling that was not going
: to relaxing any time soon. Quite possibly until the end
: of his life.
Heh, nice double meaning. This could either mean that he won't
survive this adventure - or that he *does* inherit his father's
"vocation".
To be honest, the second meaning hadn't occurred to me - but it does
fit, doesn't it. :)
Looking forward to more of this.
Sebastian
Oh, and I keep putting off that Ranko 1/2 C&C. Sorry. Tomorrow for
certain.