At 06:43  23/11/98 -0700, Jonathan C Tsoi <jct3@dana.ucc.nau.edu> wrote:

Personally I think Ranma being a major Ass is the threat of Death on in

tail...

something hunting you and you KNOW that you have close to NO chance of

winning

can do wonders for the stress levels... and in his fight for survive I think
being nice and considerate had to go... ie if you want to live you have to be
tough... and they way I see it... so far Ranma is the only one with the

chance

of surviving...

Actually, let's look at this logically: it's Ukyou who has the best chance
of surviving. Why? Because the beast cannot be beaten twice by one fighter
who uses the same skills. So Ryouga and Ranma need to come up with two
increases 
beyond what they are - not easy in the middle of nowhere. Ukyou is in the
same 
boat, but she's already learning a speed technique which may scrape her
through 
a second time, and then she's quite capable of learning something else from
the
other two - say, a ki attack or two - for the third time. In this case, it may
be the weakest who will survive. Although since no-one's kicked the 
metaphorical bucket yet, I'm sure we can assume no-one's going to later.

Good story, BTW. One thing - in the manga, Ranma really didn't appear 
to learn the chestnut technique in one day, the arrogant sod. Oh, and
Ranma's teaching attitude doesn't really bode well for later in life, 
when he runs a dojo, does it? 

(I'm looking forward to the bit where Ukyou, so pissed off at Ranma's
attitude,
remembers what she was doing for the last ten years, realises that he really
is responsible for leaving her behind, and uses all these new techniques she's
been learning and presumably will learn to pulp Ranma's body. Oh well, one 
can dream at least. ^_^ )
------
Mark Doherty - mdoherty@uq.net.au
http://www.tass.org/~mdoherty/index.html

Everything I learned, I learned from fanfics Number 11:
Rebound relationships work.
Subclause- 
Especially when it frees the 'real' couple from responsibility to them.