Susan Doenime wrote:
Completed in fairly good time. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
Aaaaaaaaaaack!
<thinks for a moment>
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
Just when I think I've got it figured out, just when I think I _know_
for a fact that Ranma is bad to the bone.... you throw this at me.
A perfectly reasonable alternate explanation for what happened. Maybe
he didn't kill Nabiki after all. Maybe he tried to save her. Maybe.
Or maybe not. Is Ranma a psycho killer or not? After chapter nine it
seemed certain that be was, and I was a bit disappointed that some of
the suspense had gone out of the story.
Boy did you sucker me.
The authors are brilliant. Brilliant I say. There are other good
writers on the FFMl who can match you for writing talent, but I don't
think _anybody_ can match your expertise in plotting a thriller. In
fact, I want to offer a suggestion. A 100% serious suggestion.
There's nothing in this that makes it absolutely necessary it be a Ranma
story. Ranma's curse hasn't been at all that integral to the plot. In
fact Xian Pu's curse has been the only really vital Ranma element, but I
bet you could work around that.
So here's my suggestion. Take this story and remove all the Ranma
elements. Redesign the characters as needed. Expand it out to novel
length. Detailing all the new characters that you described here with a
name should take care of that. Then send it off to a publisher.
Really.
"Ill met by Starlight" is better than a lot of what I see being
commericially published. I wouldn't suggest this for any other story,
but like I said, I think IMBS could stand on it's own without a single
Ranma element. I think 'old friend of the family arrives with his son'
is generic enough that nobody can really complain, and beyond that
you've made the story largely your own. I know you've both already put
a lot of work into this. Think about it.
Anyway, back to the story. I can see this ending two ways. One, Ranma
dies, but does so in a heroic enough fashion that Mariko and Co. have to
admit they're wrong about him. Two, he almost dies, but is still
convincing enough so that Mariko calls off the blood debt and Xian Pu
finds a loophole in the law.
I don't really think this will end with Ranma being revealed as a total
psycho killer. It would just be.... disappointing somehow.
But then, I've been wrong before......