At 04:35 AM 1/12/98 -0500, you wrote:

The start of the series is the saddest, darkest thing I will probably ever 
write. On the whole, the series isn't dark, it just starts that way.

Well, darkness isn't a bad thing, to be honest.  I've always found it
rather amazing that there be so much depth of emotion to be had over a
bunch of cel-animation characters.  In my case, I'm an old-school Ranma
fan... I remember when The Ranma Project first started, and when they
got shut down by Viz licensing the series. (Alas)  In any case, I own
most of the series on tape or LD, but I'm woefully out of touch with
the continuity past the end of the television series.

The best sadfic I've ever read was "Saishu no Wakare" by WebDragon.
That one surprised even me, as I never realized I'd grown to care about
the Ranma characters enough to be moved to tears by a sad story about
them.  Particularly after the VERY long stretch (about 2 or more years)
during which I watched no Ranma AT ALL.

(Yes, folks, he IS getting to a point:)

In any case... I particularly liked the beginning of this.  Poignancy
is remarkably effective when applied to characters such as these who
are normally shown in a very non-serious manner.  That is, when it's
done well, like in this case.

After the wish, there's a lot of extraneous dialogue... by this point,
everyone knows what the events of the first episode/issue of Ranma 1/2
are.  Since there were no deviations in the events of that scene, you
could have removed it entirely and summarized it without sacrificing
the efficacy and tone of the story.

Also, I would have liked to see some more information on how Ranma's
feeling, since his thoughts are obviously not the same as when he first
showed up in the first ep/ish.

Author's note:
This series, like the Night After series, falls under my category of
writing projects of whenever the spirit moves me to write it. The next
chapter may not be written for months.

That's a shame.  This has a lot of promise, and I've always been very
fond of "alternate universe" fics (good ones, anyhow).  I hope to see
more of it soon.  A very good effort. ^_^

-Deuce

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
      To reply to me, remove the "NOSPAM" from my email address.
      Systems of Choice: Neo*Geo, TurboGrafx-16 and PlayStation
The Ninja Gaiden Home Page: http://www.classicgaming.com/ninjagaiden/
       "How beautiful is death.  Death and his brother, sleep."
 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=