In localhost.fanfic-ml you write:
First off, I'd like to say that i really enjoyed this story.
I have a few comments about the story.
"Ranma....did we....I mean, this is a stupid question, but we...we
did *it*. Didn't we?"
"*It*? Oh....ahh...you mean...making love?"
Akane turned her head away from Ranma.
"Yes, that's it. We must have, or Kouma wouldn't be here, right?
Forgive me but I just needed to be told that."
"No need to apologize, Akane. I love you and.....you...", Ranma
broke off as he remembered the fight he had with Akane.
Now....now was the time to make things right.
Arrgh. This is irritating--Ranma, if you want things to be right, you
need to be honest with Akane. But, this is also good... I liked
this. Ranma still hasn't learned.
she placed Kouma on the bed, where he slept peacefully. Then she
started to pull her shirt off, but she stopped and looked at him.
"Aww..Akane! It's not like I haven't seen you...y'know."
"Still...I feel very uncomfortable. Can you please turn around?"
also very good.
"I know this must be hard on you, but what if I turned female? I
don't usually sleep in female form, when I can help it, but I'll do it."
how about "... I don't usually sleep that way..."
he had knwn. But...it seemed as if he had been given a second chance.
^^^^ known
He would do his best to help her and he would not make the same
mistakes he had made before. This time, Ranma vowed, this time he
would make it all right. No mistakes and no screw-ups. He flipped to
his side and tried to sleep, but he couldn't. It still irked him to be shut
out of his own bedroom.
The bedroom door opened and Ranma heard Akane moving
towards him. Akane came around to the couch and knelt down.
"I'm sorry, Ranma. I'm...still not used to sleeping next to a guy.
I mean, I don't...I mean...I can't...you know what I mean. So...I'm
sorry for even asking you to do something like sleep on the couch. It
must be cold....here's my blanket. It was the only one I could find in
the room, Ranma."
"What about Kouma?"
"Don't worry about.....our son. I'll be his blanket. Well....good
night." She stood up and began to leave but Ranma caught her wrist
and pulled her down, gently.
"No. Take it back. I've slept in colder places that this, and you
and Kouma need it more than I do." Ranma handed the blanket back to
Akane and patted her hand. Akane hesitated for a moment, then she
squeezed his hand and left. He heard the bedroom door shut. And
Ranma lay awake for a very long time before slumber overtook him
with its spell.
I like this scene.
"Why promise, Ranma? It's like you don't want to eat my food.
I mean, you look like a man on death row....." Ranma decided to
follow up on a nagging suspicion of his.....
"Akane....what would you do....if...if I...."
"If you...yes? Go on."
"If I said I didn't want to eat....um...your cooking? Don't take it
too hard, ok?"
"I...I'd go back and try to cook it better, Ranma. But, really, you
haven't even tasted it yet so how could you say that you don't want to
eat it?" Akane looked a little hurt and she began to take a hold of the
bowl of fried rice, to take it back to the kitchen and throw it away.
Ranma caught her hand, making her jump a bit. Akane didn't show any
sign of hitting him. In fact, she was almost....passive.
I think that the bit from "akane didn't show..." to the end of the
paragraph is unnecessary.
"Huh?" Akane had never offered to get him anything before, and
this was a first.
is this true?
This was a far cry from the manic chaos that the old Akane had
called `dinner' as she had tried her utmost best, incompetantly in that
case and many others, to feed Kouma. Ranma had contended with
flying spoons, spat-out mouthfuls of food by Kouma, and all-around
craziness at dinner, punctuated by Akane's flustered movements as she
bustled here and there, practically tearing her hair out in frustration. No
more.
In fact, it looked almost....peaceful. And peace was something
that was rare these days. Kouma threw his little arms up in the air and
Akane imitated him with a grin on her face.
This was his wife and this was his son. Nothing was threatening
them and nothing seemed out of place. It looked....perfect. This was
the family life that Ranma had wanted in
the first place, but couldn't achieve with the old Akane as his interests
had conflicted with hers.
Yet....something was missing. Something
important.
I think that this last bit is too much. One of the few criticisms I
have of this fic is that Ranma's discoveries are often expounded
repeatedly -- shown through the actions of the characters, explained
in narration or character thoughts, AND told in dialog. Your writing
is clear enough to me that these multiple expositions detract from me
discovering the ideas of the fic by themselves.
"You didn't tell me about this dress and bra....they were gift
wrapped about a week ago. And my name is on the little greeting
cards. And I can tell, at a glance, that they would fit me perfectly."
She paused for a second. "What were they for, Ranma? I know enough
of you to know that you don't give gifts for nothing...."
"Uhh...Akane? They were for you."
"I know that, Ranma. But why?"
Ranma almost told her about their biggest fight yet and the reason
behind those gifts but he withheld himself from doing so. It wouldn't
have been wise to give the impression that he and the old Akane had
fought constantly. Yes.....that was one thing he didn't miss at all. The
constant fights and the suffering he had to go through after each
altercation with her. A polite cough brought his attention back to
Akane.
"Because...I love you, Akane." Ranma looked deep into her eyes
and she looked away.
"But....we didn't have anything special going on that day, like you
said....."
This sub-plot (Ranma's lying to Akane) is great. A resolution
(e.g. Ranma not lying to Akane at the end) would be nice...
-- start --
Akane shut her eyes and she did not help him, nor resist him. For
all the life she exhibited, she might as well have been a statue - devoid
of emotions and feelings.
Ranma let Akane go, taking a tight grip on
his emotions as he did so, and he leaned back on the couch
and sighed. She was not ready yet. She still didn't know him enough.
But most important of all....she still didn't love him.
It was her way, this new Akane's way that is, of telling him that
she didn't want to do anything with him.
"Ranma...I'm not prepared for that sort of thing yet. I mean,
essentially, we've only known each other for three weeks!"
Again, an example of where I think you're repeating yourself in
different ways. You can probably choose any one of the above five
sections and get your point across... personally, I like the first.
Akane put the red dress and the bra down, then she gave Ranma
an uncertain smile and she left. Soon, he heard the sound of the
vacumn cleaner somewhere upstairs. She was cleaning again. Akane
was becoming almost like Kasumi. Not that there was anything bad
about Kasumi but...she wasn't his type of woman.
The bit about Kasumi is unneeded, I think; the bit about the vacuum
cleaner was plenty.
The next night, after an excellent supper cooked by Akane, he
caught her sewing up one of his old shirts. She was doing a fantastic
job of it, making the rip in the shirt disappear with the magic of the
needle and thread. And just twenty minutes after that, he saw her
watching a home improvement channel and she didn't switch to a movie
channel after a minute or two, like she used to do.
In fact, truth be told, she was taking notes.
Ranma leaned against the wall and half-listened to the program
hostess lecture about the do's and don'ts of cushion making.
He had it. He knew what was wrong about the whole situation.
Where was the fire that was Akane? Where was the spirited woman
whom he had fallen in love with so long ago, it seemed? Akane
exclaimed with joy over a juicy tip given by the program hostess and
Ranma shuddered. She was not Akane, not the Akane he had known
anyhow. He missed her excited voice as she had shared with him the
thrills and chills of an action or a horror movie.
Compared to showing Akane's growing domestication by her actions this
narrative explanation pales in comparison.
He wanted to see the mischevious and playful smile she would toss
his way along with the contents of a cup of cold water. Ranma yearned
for her loving touch, her soft skin rubbing against his own, and her
whispers of sweet nothings in his ear. He wanted to feel her in his
arms, melting into his embrace....yet...with this new Akane, none of
that might be possible. Already he could feel her moving away from
him. For over a week, he had slept on the couch instead of the bed.
Alone and feeling forgotten.
IMO, Ranma's thinking about the purely physical parts of his
relationship with Akane seems to detract from the fic's effect for me.
I don't even think it's that important to Ranma; would he really be
happy if this Akane were having sex with him? I don't even think it
would distract him from the real issue (he likes the tough Akane) for
more than a few days...
[...]
"He didn't. The Well of Dreams comes but once for a person and
only rarely...yet..you're a special case, I can tell. You're different,
somehow."
"I'm different?"
"Yes. You're different. Remember that. That difference is the
key to getting to the Well a second time." He got up and began to
hobble away on his cane. Ranma looked at his retreating form until the
security guard asked him to exit the mall for it was closing. He went
home, his thoughts awhirl.
[...]
By the light of the half-moon, he made his way through the quiet
and serene forest as he searched for the Well of Dreams. He almost got
clotheslined by a low hanging branch but he ducked under it at the last
moment. Now he knew how Ryoga must have felt on one of his
nighttime excursions in the deepest, darkest wilds of Japan.
The moonlight cast dim shadows about him in the colorless world
of night. Nothing broke the almost-magical silence. This was the
domain of the night, where no light should intrude, and the forest
seemed to reinforce that with its tall tree trunks and many leaves that
tried to block the moonlight from the ground. He stumbled over a root
and he cursed himself for not thinking to bring a flashlight, but he
forged on.
A cold wind swept through the trees and rustled the dead leaves on
their branches, making them fall off around Ranma. He brushed the
leaves from his head and he kept searching. He wandered for hours, it
seemed, fearing that he was going in circles, until a dim
glow beckoned to him ahead. Somehow, Ranma knew he had found it.
He swallowed and made his way towards it.
Ranma stepped forth into a clearing and beheld the Well of
Dreams. He stepped up to it and peered once more into its mysterious
depths, trying again to see the bottom where heaps upon heaps of coins
should lie. Only darkness, black and shimmering, greeted his gaze.
Ranma pulled out his fifty yen coin and rubbed it. He no longer
doubted that the well would work, and that understanding opened up
new avenues of action.
This was a very important moment of his life - and it would
determine Akane's life too. Ranma felt as if he were on the top of a hill
and looking down at an endless myriad of paths he could take.
Why....he could wish for unlimited wealth! Then he, Akane and Kouma
would be set for life. He could wish for everlasting life for the three of
them. In fact, he could wish for his curse to be lifted. The thought of
that was extremely tempting.....
Somehow he knew that the Well of Dreams could grant any wish,
but only once for him and no more. It would never seek him out again
for as long as he lived. And he would have to live with the
consequences of his action.
But the Well of Dreams has *already* granted him a wish, right? Or
was that in female form... (that's the difference, right... he had to
be different sexes to be able to use the well twice...)
This is good, but until just now, I didn't realize that Ranma used the
well in *female* form before, so male form is the one she needs. I'd
suggest making this explicit here, by forcing Ranma to explicitly
change sex to find the well (have him go searching in female form, and
despair, and then realize, or have him find the well the first time in
male form, and then switch to female). Maybe others will catch it the
first time. I *assumed* that Ranma had found the well the first time
in male form, so I was looking for a female transformation somewhere
around here.
[...]
"Ranma...I just woke up from a bad dream. I mean...I didn't even
remember anything about you, in my dream, and I had to get to know
you over again......I'm sorry, Ranma. It's just a dream, but I'm still
sorry. I...I love you. Even if we had fought...I still love you. I'm
sorry for hitting you, Ranma."
I think it would be better for Ranma to face an Akane who's very angry
still... show that he really has changed, that he really does care,
enough to flat out apologize, without regard for whether or not he's
partially right or preserving his dignity. Throughout this whole
thing, Ranma has been avoiding directness (either by hiding things
from the amnesiac Akane, or by avoiding pure apology to Akane)... it'd
be good for him to show that he has learned that that is an important
component of a good relationship.
Akane hugged Ranma and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. Ranma
wondered if the Well of Dreams had been all a dream after all. Nothing
seemed to have changed. He reached into his coat pocket and felt
about. Nothing. He *knew* he had a fifty-yen piece in there not too
long ago....could it all truly had happened?
I like this touch... the uncertainty is good... I would actually go as
quickly to the ending as possible from this point... like so...
Ranma picked a shopping bag up from where it sat beside the
couch and he peered in it. A red dress and a bra. He did buy Akane
gifts, but did that mean that he had been living out a dream?
"These are for you, Akane. I bought them for you, using
my...female side as a measuring stick."
Akane's face turned scarlet as she saw how low-cut the bust on the
dress was. "I'm sure you did, you pervert." She giggled, to show that
she didn't really mean what she had just said. "What are they for? You
don't buy gifts for nothing, you know."
"Call it....a gift to welcome you back."
Ranma's still avoiding telling the truth... but this isn't as bad,
esp. if Ranma apologizes to Akane earlier...
"Welcome me back? Why? Where did I go?" She got up and
looked coyly at Ranma, her face turning a deeper red. "Oh....I see.
You...uh....missed me. This dress and bra are great, but don't you
think you should be doing something...*more* to properly welcome me
back from wherever I had gone to? Hmmm?" She rose from the bed
and wrapped her arms about him.
Ranma shut the bedroom door. And he locked it.
something like that...
Anyway, that's my opinion...
I really enjoyed this; it uses the infamous parallel universe story to
teach Ranma a lesson, and one that's a bit more subtle than the usual
one (that he loves Akane as she is, not just that he loves Akane).
However, I think that there are a number of places where things are
made too explicit. Maybe it's just me, but I think that the action of
the story tells well enough to be left without as much explanation of
Ranma's thinking.
bryan