"He barely touched his food Oneechan."  Kasumi looked up from the

dishes

she was washing and stared into her little sister's worried face, oh

she

may deny it every time she could but the truth was that she did care

for

her inaazuke.

Two tired, canned fanfiction openings combined into one. Boring.

Kasumi looked up from the dishes she was washing, and stared into her
little sister's worried face. <Oh, she may deny it, but the truth is
obvious whenever they're together--just hurry, Akane-chan. I've always
liked younger men>.

That's interesting.

I think our mutual friend is learning from our critiques on his critiques.
And he's got a point here... consensus a while back was that a unique
opening made for a more-read story, at least when the story is short and/or
starting. Actually, I haven't seen all that much of the first half of this
opening, but the second half... bludgeon us with it, why don't you? Though
I'm not entirely sure this opening was canned, it DID have the feeling of
being a bit too _in medias res_ for my tastes.

Ranma was in the middle of the dojo doing a slow moving beginner's

kata,

his every move spoke of grace and latent strength, his movement

flawlessl=

y
shifting from one form  to the next. His eyes closed as if in an inner
meditation.

Feel the nature around you, and let the peace flow through your mind,
Grasshopper. Hummmmmmmmmmm...

Sorry, we're not talking about Ranma.

Open to debate. Many people will say that true success at the Art is a
manner of balance in all things and on all fronts. And I believe it's been
conceded, or at least talked about, that any further improvement Ranma makes
in the Art will be in deepening his existing styles... or that to learn from
someone like his father, he would need at least a fairly agile mind. Unlike,
say, Ryoga, who often hides behind a new technique or sheer ability, Ranma
is a fairly apt battlefield tactician. He has to be, to win battles against
superior opponents. Whether this translates into intelligence and the
Zen-like mental stereotype of Eastern martial artists has yet to be
demonstrated, although, given that one of the conditions for said state
seems to be humility and an acknowledgement of one's own insignificance, it
seems fairly unlikely Ranma could settle into it without some serious mental
changes. Lawson kicked off TIL with Ranma being told (not finding out, TOLD.
By his mother, I think) that a) his martial arts wouldn't always carry him
through and b) he was turning out to be just like his old man. Nekophobia
opens with Ranma nearly losing Akane thanks in part to his temporary absence
from the immediate vicinity, courtesy of her anger. In other words... if
you're going to set Ranma up like this, either flesh out the
characterization a bit or give him a good reason... Bob Barnes comes to mind
as an author who did the latter.

And then there's this weird idea bouncing around my head for a story where
Ranma enters a standard tournament, to lend credibility to the dojo, and the
coordinators refuse to recognize the Anything Goes style because two of them
were recently *ahem* liberated from their underthings by its master, so
Ranma needs to train with an outside source. Enter Pat Morita.

But that's not important right now. Neither is the Pretender crossover which
is currently spiraling off into nowhere, but which entails a master of the
physical arts (namely Ranma) meeting a master of the mental ones (namely
Jared).

Ranma was interrupted by a laughing Akane, he frowned and asked what

she

thought was funny. Akane replied "You should listen to yourself, I

didn't

know your thoughts run that deep, but if it's any consolation, I think

yo=

u
have matured Ranma, you've improved in your skill, you have gained a

high

sense of honor, seeing as who your father is, that comes as a surprise.

That makes the two of us, and probably 90% of fans. It's called OOC.

OOC doesn't mean that a character does something he normally
wouldn't--it's when a character is no longer recognizable as canon.

Which, itself, is not a bad thing... however, given that one "assumes" the
canon when writing a short fic, any departures must of necessity be
justified. Having Ranma suddenly realize he got a year older... it just
doesn't seem as likely that THAT is going to cause many serious mental
changes. It's not that it's a bad thing to WRITE Ranma like this (see
above), it's that, with no apparent reason, many people won't believe Ranma
CAN be like this. Again, for a fic this short, it may seem a stretch to have
to justify this sudden change in Ranma's mindset, but I just can't accept
that he's always been like this. What's changed?

This fic has no point.

Takahashi-sama wandered about quite a bit, too, in the manga, and there were
several stories suspiciously McGuffin-ish in nature. This is obviously
intended as a cross-section into the life of a Ranma who's done some growing
up... however, without the appropriate framework around it, it does seem
rather pointless... rather like a single scene from a longer story.

The premise is valid, but it leaves me cold, and
you don't explore it.

So if he explored it, it'd still leave you cold.

But seriously, ALL premises are valid. I read a credible story where both
Saotomes and Tendos were carrying on Happy's lecherous legacy, and found it
an interesting departure. However, if you're going to ask your reader to
make certain assumptions about the characters which are not immediately
evident in the canon, those assumptions need support, or at least a cursory
notification to the reader. Note that this also holds true for minor nits in
the canon itself.

You're dialogue is top-heavy.

This is another legitimate gripe, I mean the characters talked like they had
some sort of agenda, like they were working off of Cliffs Notes and didn't
want to say more than what they had to, and certain things just came right
out of nowhere out of their mouths and into their minds, and also they
tended to think and speak in one big sentence with a ton of qualifiers like
this one, isn't that annoying?

Perhaps not to that degree, but in an introspection fic thoughts generally
shouldn't run together, and revelations made all at once leave a lot of
people either stunned and reeling or disbelieving or both. This fic feels a
little too... I don't know, I suppose the word is crowded. Too much is
happening in too little space.

--G. Falconar, who earnestly believes that C&C which is not fleshed out is
as bad or worse than a fanfic of similar nature.