HEARTS AND MINDS PRELUDE TEN

Hearts and Minds:  The most famous series on the FFML that hasn't 
actually started yet.

	Ranma always loved playing with his kids. They were so free; so
full of life -- life that had begun as part of his, but had grown into
something unique and wonderful, with unlimited possibilities ahead.

That last phrase doesn't flow quite right -- it almost feels 
unfinished.  (Yes, it's me -- the nitpicking has begun!)

	While he wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to go through
what he had had to go through, he knew that if he could go back in time
and redo his life,

"redo his life"?  Well, I guess "relive his life" isn't much better.  
Perhaps a totally different phrase, like "do everything again" or 
"live everything over" or something.

knowing what would happen, he'd gladly do the same thing over again.

Can we be more specific than "the same thing?"

	"Hey, Ranma," Daisuke said as he huffed and wheezed, staggering
up the path. "Let's stop here for a while, okay?" He'd put on some
obvious weight since graduating from Furinkan; one of the dangers of
marrying a good cook.

That semi-colon needs to be a comma, as the second half of the 
sentence isn't a complete phrase.

	"Heh. I'm pretty sure Akane don't want no more. Not that she'd
mind another kid around, but she hated being pregnant so much that I'm
pretty sure she won't want to do it again."

Foreshadowing:  Your clue to quality literature.

	"It's like the guy in this American TV show that I saw. He goes
around looking for people in trouble. He says, 'I am...' whatever the
heck his name was -- I don't remember, 'I am here to help your village.'
Then he kicks the bad guy's butts. It was pretty cool. That's what I
wanna do."

JULES: I'm gonna walk the  earth.

VINCENT:  What do you mean, walk the earth?

JULES:  You know, walk the earth.  Like Caine in "KUNG FU."

	"Yeah, but we never really helped nobody like they did on the
show. Mostly, Pop just went around bumming food offa people. Sometimes I
think the only reason we didn't just stay home and train was that he
wanted to get away from Mom lecturing him about honor."

A nice down to earth perspective of their little trip.  I'm never too 
comfortable with the whole "Ranma as superhero" thing.

. What's more, Kodachi was sure to be
back eventually, and Kami only knew what she'd do when she showed up.

I certainly don't speak Japanese, but the phrase "Kami only knew" 
sounds like a distinctly western perversion to me.  Really, that 
doesn't sound any less false than if you made Ranma a Christian.

. She had given him some kind
of potion that made him do anything she said. It was a miracle that he
managed  to escape.

Before now in the dream sequence, you've used a verb tense with "had" 
(I dunno what it's called), and after here you use simple past.  You 
need to be consistent.  I suggest you stick with "had" for the dream, 
as it would make it easier to tell what's going on later.

	Then there was Kodachi. She wrapped  him up in that ribbon of
hers, and 

no comma before "and"

	"Being dead's really inconsiderate, Ranma." Akane, already clean
and dressed, tugged at his arm. "Come on, get up!"

I'll mention this here:  you've got a really good Ranma/Akane dynamic 
going throughout the fic, with some excellent dialogue.  Ranma's 
coarseness seems especially appropriate, and not shying away from 
words like "cunt" (as most fanfic authors do) makes the character 
seem more true.

	"Ranma no BAKE!" Akane hit him on the head with her pillow. "Get
up, I said!"

I think that's a typo, Gary.  Don't you mean bakA?  :)  (Please 
explain this gag, for those of us who don't speak Japanese.  Or just 
for me, anyway.)

	"Good idea. We can go next weekend. In the meantime, stay a
woman. And stay away from the public baths; they'll probably explode if
you get near them."

	"Let's hope we get rid of this soon. You ain't gonna be happy if
I have to keep being a girl for a long time. Bad enough if I have to
take cold showers."

On that note, Akane really should be a mite more upset about this. 
And they stop trying to change him back into a guy awfully quickly; 
two coincidences aren't very much to base the kind of assumptions 
they're making on.  

	Within seconds, it was over. *She beat these guys so easily,*
Ranma thought. *She must really be getting good.*

	"You beat these guys so easily, Akane!" he said. "They must
really suck.

Heh heh heh.

	"HUH?" Ranma looked at Hakano, at Akane, and back at Hakano.
"What the heck are you talking about? I never 'confided innermost
dreams' with Ucchan! I mainly just went to her place to eat!"

Feeling subtle today, are we, Gary?

	Ranma let  Hakano drop unceremoniously, and motioned to Hikaru.

 Ranma and Akane don't seem very concerned about him getting hurt 
during the fight.  I think most parents of toddlers would take a 
little more care than leaving their child alone, on the sidewalk, 
while they assaulted their adversaries.

Kasumi answered in a voice not quite her own. "I am Feng Lili. I am
truly sorry for the distress I am bringing upon you."

Okay, I'm really uncomfortable with this plot development.  The 
problem isn't just that the girl who drowned in the Jusenkyo spring 
is talking to Ranma, though that's hackneyed enough.  It's that the 
idea's not exploited as anything but a plot device.  Why does Ranma 
keep the baby?  Because Lili wants him to, and that's reason enough.  
Make it a bigger part of the story or take it out all together; the 
cloying reference to "Lili's child" at the end doesn't work at all 
because we've hardly heard anything about Lili since we first found 
out about her.

Genma leaned back on the couch, munching on some potato chips
and holding out his cup. "So the boy went and got himself pregnant,
did he?"

That's a great line.  Very Genmaesque.

"Hey, Ryoga. Glad you're here. For a minute I thought there
might be somebody somewhere who didn't know about my condition yet."

I noticed this during the conversation with the doctor too -- your 
tendency towards minimalism in conversations is hurting you.  Ranma 
seems almost lackadaisical, and it doesn't feel quite right.  Give 
yourself rhythm with a little bit more description of characters' 
actions, motions, etc.  You generally do pretty good job at this, but 
be careful. 

Ranma lumbered into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him,
and began doing all the usual things one did in a bathroom. He was
tired, for no good reason that he could think of. The differential
equations he had been working on were, if anything, simpler than 
last semester's line integrals, but somehow he couldn't concentrate 
well enough to finish them.

Do you really think Ranma could handle calculus?  Ever?

With a low, soothing purr, she snuggled up next to him. Their
lips met, and her tongue began exploring his mouth. His heart beat
faster. He felt wetness and a throbbing, pulsating sensation in his
cunt. So this was what it was like to be aroused as a woman.

Like he doesn't already know...

Pantyhose moved his face uncomfortably close to Ranma's. "So
where is he?" The gleam in his eyes, the way he smiled and chuckled 
to himself for no apparent reason, made it seem like Pantyhose might 
go completely psycho at any moment. 

That's a sentence fragment.

It reminded Ranma of the actor Jack
Nicholson, who he'd seen in a couple of American movies. He could 
see how a guy like that could give Akane the willies.

Isn't there a better way to give us the idea of what Pantyhose looks 
like than comparing him to an American actor? I mean, just the fact 
that you feel like you have to put a little disclaimer after the 
phrase should tell you something.

There was a pause. "Ever hear of the legendary brassiere of
Meiyouren?"

That's _got_ to be a pun on something, but I can't think what.

It was sobering to think just how much he took his body for
granted -- never thinking about how easily something could go wrong
with it. And once it did, you couldn't just go down to a body shop 
and pick up a new one. 

Sure you can!  A trip to Jusenkyou'll do ya.  Really, this seems 
like a strange thought for shape-shifting Ranma to have.

Then, what kind of kid would he have? He had told Akane what the
doctor had said about the dangers of inbreeding. She didn't know 
what to do about it any more than he did. All they could do was hope 
that nothing important would go wrong, and to deal with it if 
something did.

The doctor didn't mention that they could get an amniocentesis done 
and check for deformities before the birth?  What a strange omission.

"My baby!" The fluid seeped into the ground, disappearing from
view. Ranma pounded on the dirt with both hands as he cried, "Give 
me back my baby!"

I like that  -- a very feminine phrase, but therefore telling.

He moved. Suddenly, he found himself not walking but swimming,
through a vast black sea. He desperately held his breath as he 
flailed around in the water, trying to figure out which way was up, 
as the air inside his lungs struggled to escape. Was this... the 
end?

That's a corny way to end the dream, I think.  It's fine up till the 
last sentence.

Akane kissed him, and grinned. "Of course, if you wanted to cut
down on the belching, that'd be okay with me."

This Ranma/Akane scene works very well.  But...

"I only hope that the gods did not inflict all of this on you to
teach me a lesson. It would be most unjust for a young man to suffer
so merely because it was the only way for the truth to penetrate the
arrogance of a stubborn old woman."

This Nodoka scene doesn't work at all.  Both characters sound like 
they're giving speeches, and the lack of description I mentioned 
earlier prevents us getting a real feeling for _their_ feelings.  
Work on it a little more.

"You mean... no inbreeding? No genetic diseases and deformities?
We're gonna have a normal kid?"

Once again, they should really already know this.

*Please... please make it stop,* he cried in his mind to any
power that might be able to hear. *I'll convert to religion...
Shinto... Catholicism... Scientology... anything you want. 

How about Raoism?  :)

"I'm not bein' stubborn! It's just that... it's not good for the kid!
'When you take drugs, your baby does too!'"

I knew that one was coming back...

"Yes, but I trained for it, you jerk! I had Lamaze classes!"

Is there any reason Ranma didn't have those sort of classes?  I would 
think someone in his extended family would be thoughtful enough to 
realize that he might want them.  And if he didn't take them because 
he wanted to hang onto his masculinity or something like that, let us 
know about it.


Overall, this was pretty good, but not my favorite of the series.  
You do a great job of showing us the effects of Ranma's pregnancy, 
with your trademark humor and trademark gobs of foreshadowing.  Work 
on some of the extended conversations, and consider taking Lili out 
entirely.  (I really don't think that part of the fic worked at all.)

(I'm sending this to both you and the FFML, because I'm still not 
convinced it's 100% healthy and I don't want you to miss it.)

Thomas Schmidt
Tschmidt@tcon.net
http://nabiki.newberry.edu/Job/