On Tue, 18 Nov 1997, Mark Doherty wrote:

?: Yes, I killed him before I made the speech. When you live as long as me,
   you learn not to stop for speeches. Anyway, enough of that. Today, 
   apparently, we're looking at Chapter 3 of Parallel Lives, a curious 
   'little' X-over. Absolutely nothing to do with Sailor Moon, so technically
   I shouldn't be the one reviewing it, but who really cares?

Heh :)
    

At 05:04 PM 16/11/97 -0600, Ranma Al'Thor wrote:

?: 'would recognize her' would probably work out better with the rest
   of the tense-use in that sentence.

      Ukyou looked up from his cooking.  ÒWhatÕs wrong, Ranchan?Ó

Ukyou: Oh, I see he's using that 'pronouns based on attitude' thing that
       some people do. That stuff really gives me a headache. But why am I 
       in my 'male mode' here?

?: *cough* Because your body is.

Ukyou: WHAT!?

?: Curses, like colds, can be contagious. He explained how you got it in the 
   previous chapter. And both you and Ranma are sort of stuck in your current 
   genders, again for reasons explained previously in the story. Besides, if 
   there was ever a right curse for the right person in the Ranma series, it 
   would be you and male water.

I'll just go hide now before she finds me.

?: Please don't do that, it's undignified. As a side point, you use a suffix 
   for Ranma's curse, but not Ukyou's. That makes it confusing, it might be 
   an idea to either tack on -kun to Ukyou, or switch to Ranko for Ranma like 
   the version of chapter 2 I've got here does.

Nod.
 

       Ranma-chan had been the only person who came and said good-
bye when Alyssa left.  Alyssa had tried to convince her to come 
with her, but Ranma-chan couldnÕt leave until she either reached 
Accepted status or burned out or been thrown out, and Ranma-chan 

?: 'been thrown out' reads wrong. Perhaps 'was thrown out' instead? We are,
   of course, ignoring those curious little symbol problems.

Ukyou: Of course.

I've been having problems getting the quotations and a few other things
from my text editor to convert into ascii " marks.

BetterTelnet is an improvement on my old telnet program, but it has some
problems.

 

       Four full sisters stood around the ter'angreal--a red, a blue, a 
green, and a brown.  A fifth stood by him, another blue, Sheriam, 

?: You've been keeping pronouns correct to current gender...

Ukyou: Hmph. Just because I dressed like a boy didn't mean that I--

?: AND so you'll want to change that him to a her.

Quite.  
 

      Learning to open herself to the Source had been hellishly 
difficult.  It didn't come naturally to her, which had been 
reassuring and frustrating at the same time.  At least I didn't have 
the same problem as Nynaeve, she thought.  I bet Akane would be 
like that if she could channel.  Akane can't even do much with her 
chi, so she'd probably have an even harder time than I did.  I bet 
Ukyou could learn...not that I could teach her like this, with her a 
guy.  

?: (turns to Ukyou) I don't know, I think you'd work best with items of
   power, myself. Like Mat's fox-head amulet and spear, they'd be perfect.

Ukyou: Maybe I could find a magical Spatula of Doom or something. ^_^

Heh.  Close :)
 

      Ranma-chan stared at Ukyou's chest, which was quite flat, 
since Ukyou was currently male.  Ukyou looked down at his shirt.  
"Do I have a stain or something?"

Ukyou: Ha! He--

?: She.

Ukyou: She can't keep her eyes off me! I always knew me and Ranchan were meant 
       to be together. But no, what do I get instead in fanfics?

?: Several inventive paths to a depressing end, be it death or marriage to
   Ryouga.

Ukyou: That's right.

She will get better this time :)

     The second reason was the more important one, and the one 
that was probably giving him the insomnia in the first place.  He 
always felt guilty after they made love, and he wasn't sure why, 
though there were several possibilities.  The one he considered 
most likely was that he was making love to a girl.  He'd never found 
girls attractive before he was stranded here--well, not sexually 
attractive anyway.  He'd been able to tell if a woman was pretty, 
but he hadn't wanted women the way he did now. It wasn't just 
Alyssa.  He was starting to notice lots of women that way.  Kaneda 
wasn't as homophobic as Ranma was, but it bothered him.  Why was 
this happening?  Was it a side effect of being a boy?  What if I turn 
back into a girl and it doesn't stop?  I wonder if Ranma would start 
liking boys if he stayed a girl for too long, he wondered.  Did this 
mean it was all a result of his body?  Kaneda had never really 
thought about sexuality before...not its origins, anyway.  

?: This entire Kaneda subplot is what makes the fic really, really
   interesting, in my opinion.

Biles:  Thank you :)
 

Ukyou: I didn't hear you say Akane was perfect for a guy curse, and she's
       way more of a tomboy than me... Maybe you'd like to explain that (hefts
       spatula again)

?: Sometimes, you just can't win. Anyway, yes, Kaneda's development and 
   growing maturity is the true reason I like this storyline over all 
   your others, it works well and it helps that it 'nudges' the Ukyou/Ranma
   desire thing along as well.

Thanks.  Gonna make a big mess when new style Kaneda and Alyssa meet Ranma
and Ukyou :)

     They discussed several ideas with their dinner, and 
afterwards, Ranma-chan put her shirt back on, which helped Ukyou 
finally spurs his state of arousal.  Finally, they decided to go to 

?: Spurs his state of arousal?

Ukyou: (shrugs) I don't know, but it sure doesn't sound right.

I think there was a spellchecker accident here.

 

       He was back in the tent.  The present was still there, so he 
opened it. Inside it was a letter, from someone named 'Sherin Loys 
Delerini'.  

       "If I am reading this, then it means that I have been reborn 
and reawakened to the talent I possessed in this life.  It also 
means that my skills were sufficient to create a messenger 
capable of lasting however long that might take."

?: 'Note to my future reincarnation. Don't forget to take the garbage out on
   Tuesday.' This dream sequence is certainly surreal enough to fit into the
   dreamworld of WOT.

Danke.

 

       Ukyou stared at the letter.  This is from a past life of mine?  
No way.  Jeez, this is a crazy dream.  He read on.

     It was her own handwriting, she suddenly realized.  He dropped 

?: Another case of mixed gender pronoun usage.

D'oh!
 

?: Yes. And that's that for this little C&C. It's lucky I'm immortal. 
   Considering how long this chapter took, I'll need the patience of the
   eternally long lived to last until the next chapter.

What delayed me was that I suddenly couldn't figure out where to go next.
I had a lot of ideas, but no clue how to end things.

As it is, I messed up in my timelining, and by the WOT timeline, this
story would actually have to be set AFTER all of the published books,
since Ranma's first visit to this world overlapped The Dragon
Reborn-Shadow Rising, and it's not winter yet by the end of Crown of
swords.  I'll probably just handwave that, though :)

Thanks for the C and C!

John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/

     The Moon Hill Gymnasium was crowded with students, most from Moon 
Hill, but some from other schools.  The special committee to pick the 
theme for the first spring dance had argued for weeks over a theme.  Many 
ideas had been suggested:  Love--American Style, Spring Sock Hop, Can't 
Stop Doing the Monkey, The Black Plague, Enchantment under the Sea, Zinc 
Oxide and You, Space Viking Vixen Women from Venus, The Progressive Era, 
and The First Spring Dance.  After extensive argument, the sole remaining 
conscious committee member had selected the theme "Our Gym Covered in 
Crepe Paper."  
--Sailor Moon Z #7