At 11:10 AM 7/21/97 -0400, Matt Posner wrote:

As always, a well-polished draft. As an example of the kind,
Ranma's-best-friend version of Ukyo, it's very strong. The imagery comes
through well, although there is room for additional visuals. Claire is
good at showing quiet moments in which relationships change or grow; in
this one, two of the Ranma loners discover common ground, even though
one of them spends the whole time as a pig.

   I agree that Claire, like Joseph Palmer, excels at showing the quiet
moments.  I also agree that the story would benefit from some additional
description.  However, Claire has done something in this story that she may
not even be aware of.  Although she is laying the framework for a
Ryoga/Ukyo friendship, she is also showing Ryoga's fatal flaw.  By once
more allowing someone to assume that he is just a pig, he is perpetrating a
fraud.  Although Ryoga might be able to plead certain extenuating
circumstances as regards his deception of Akane, he has no good excuse for
his behavior in this story.  He didn't even attempt to find hot water or to
leave when Ukyo started talking about things that he had no right to hear.  

  Does Ryoga realize that he is repeating the pattern?  Now Ryoga will also
have to worry about concealing his curse from Ukyo.  The moral crime is not
that Ryoga has been in their beds.  The crime is that he is allows them to
reveal private thoughts to him.  Worse than peeping at their bodies, he is
peeping at their souls.  

Only questions/problems I note here: Can Ukyo actually lift Ryoga's
umbrella? Would it take her so long to recognize P-Chan?

  This is a logic flaw.  Ukyo should recognize the umbrella and the pack,
even if she doesn't make the connection between P-chan and Ryoga ("I wonder
why Ryoga left his umbrella and pack outside my door with P-cha?")

                                                                      dml