On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Deuce wrote:

Well, part two is finally mostly ready.  Some of it's a little bit
rough (particularly the Nabiki/Akane scene), but I wanted to get this
posted to get some feedback.  Read, and please email me with any
comments and/or suggestions.  Many thanks in advance. ^_^

Always glad to C&C well-written fics with interesting storylines. :)

                       The Domino Effect
                     A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction
                by Deuce (deuce@classicgaming.com)

"Try something like that again and *you're* dead, Ryouga," hissed
Ranma into the lostboy's ear.

                 ^^^^^^^
Shouldn't there be a space in "lost boy"?

	Ranma sighed, closing his eyes.  When he opened them again,
he almost looked like he did before.  His eyes were no longer dark

                                                                ^^|^
I.e. his eyes were no longer glowing red? (if so, 'dark' isn't ---|
really the right word to describe it I'd think...)

	"Well, Ryouga," he said after a significant pause, "Life has
gotten into me.  I'm tired of always being hunted.  I don't want to
deal with this anymore.  And I especially don't want to be around
Akane."

Well, its about time Ranma figured that out, ne? ^_^

	"That's none of your business, P-suke," said Ranma, his voice
dropping again to its earlier, sinister tone.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a P-suke? (Perhaps an explanation of what
"P-suke" is could be given in the author's notes section.) I thought Ranma
would just call Ryouga P-chan.

	Ranma chuckled.  "Where else?  I'm going to back to China, to
try and find a real cure for this curse.  And whether I find one or
not, I'm not coming back to this city."  He stood and looked around.

A little off-topic rant I'm going to make here. Ranma's curse being cured
makes things a bit less interesting between him and his fiancees. No more
girl-girl kisses or lemon scenes. :P (damn I have a hentai mind :)

	Ryouga stood as well, and was about to respond, when suddenly
he was interrupted by a flurry of spikes, kitchen sinks, cinder
blocks, and other assorted hard and/or pointy things attached to
chains flying through the air at them.

Not to mention egg bombs, training potties, throwing spears/knives,
maces...

"I just need to go... somewhere.  Somewhere other than here."  He
glanced up at Ryouga.  "I... I appreciate what you did, Ryouga," he
said.  "Tnank you."

          ^^^^^
Should be "Thank you."

	Saotome charged off into the night, gripping his head like it
was about to explode.  Ryouga was left staring after him as he
charged off into the night, totally unsure of what to do now.

Why did you suddenly switch to "Saotome charged off" instead of "Ranma
charged off"?

	A friend... it seemed too obvious.  Surely she would be
willing to help.  He had no one else to turn to.  "I can't go back to

Of course, sweet Ucchan who would do anything for her Ranchan. (Save it
Gary Kleppe-san, I am allowed to rant a little aren't I? :)

glass.  Gingerly, she lifted him and set him down on her bed, and

^_^ Looks like Ukyou finally got Ranma in her bed.

straightened his arms and legs.  She winced at the cuts he had
sustained on his trip through the window, and knew she had to hurry.

Its amazing how Ranma can get beat up a lot without taking any apparent
damage, and then crash through a simple window and get injured
significantly. Ah well, another one of those evasive laws of anime. :)

	He shook his head and touched the hand of his doppelganger.

'Doppleganger' is the correct spelling I believe.

	He turned his gaze down to the plateful of food in her lap.
It wasn't okonomiyaki, which surprised him.  It certainly smelled
good though.  "What's this?" he asked in as innocent a tone as
possible.  He didn't want to sound suspicious or ungrateful.

I like how you pay special attention to these fine details, (e.g. "in as
innocent a tone as possible...didn't want to sound suspicious or
ungrateful") 

	But then Ranma had a flash of insight.  ** Akane and Shampoo
are no longer issues.  Eat. **  The thought came unbidden, and it

Or so he thinks. ^_^

	Ukyou smiled at him.  "It's kind of an experiment.  I tried
it before and *I* liked it... but I wanted to see if you would."  She

Ah yes, all good cooks TRY their cooking before feeding it to others. :)

But if it would help Ranma, [Ukyou] knew she would
go to the ends of the earth.
	Or maybe beyond.

Amen. :)

And so ends chapter 2, in a *mostly*-finished form.  C&C/MST is
quite welcome, and encouraged.  I hope everyone's enjoying this.  I'm
putting a lot more effort into this than I originally imagined, when
I began.  It's undergone a few changes as I was writing it, and now
seems to be writing itself.  I'm always pleased when one of my own
stories can surprise me by how it develops.  It doesn't happen very
often. :)

Like I said before, your writing style is excellent; your fic is well
formatted, no special ASCII characters (which come out weird on some
peoples' terminals, including mine) are used, and there are very few
grammar/spelling errors. Your range of vocabulary is good too;
"trepidation"? :)

As for your characterization, you have payed very good attention to minute
details and I believe you have done a good job of portraying the
characters accurately.

This is kind of an open-ended story so far... I'm still not sure how
I'm going to end up closing things out.  I've a few ideas, but given
that nothing's carved in stone, I think I'm going to let it go where
it wants for now.  If it starts getting out of control, then I'll
pull back on the leash.  Until then, please keep reading, and write
me at deuce@classicgaming.com if you want to send me encouragement or
other nice things. :)

I love how Ukyou is putting everything on hold and helping Ranma in his
time of need. I hope as the story progresses, Ukyou and Ranma will start
becoming closer and closer to each other. Akane could use some comforting
from Ryouga and/or P-chan too.

You won't keep us waiting long on finding out why Ranma's "dark side" is
suddenly emerging, right? :)

BTW, I think you spelled Ryouga's attack wrong. "Shishi Houdoukan", not
Houkoudan. 

Keep up the great writing, and I hope to see Part 3 soon. :)

-Philip Mak (pmak@cs.dal.ca)