Looks good; just a few random comments:

Hmm... they didn't look all that random to me, Gary.  What are you 
trying to pull?

    "--monstrous, ugly, bullying--"
    
    Ryoga frowned.  "Pantyhose was here?"
    
    "--filthy, degenerate, wormlike--"

Welcome to Rouget's thesaurus!

Okay, Gary, truth comes out now... you're Piers Anthony, aren't you?  

    A knock at the door.  He turned, dropping the sword's tip 
until it nearly touched the floor.  Silently, he waited.  If the
door opened and it was not who he expected, he would likely have
to kill them.

"Mr. Yotsuya! Are you in there? I'm here for this month's rent!"

<snicker>

    "It will work," he answered finally.  "By the time the sun 
rises tomorrow, I would guess that nearly all of the Joketsuzoku 
that live will be united behind you."

Yeah, both of them, right?

Hidden meanings are fun.

    Akane fixed Shampoo with a flat look.  "Oh?  Like, say,
trying to make someone love you by magic?  Is that wrong?"

    "Yes!" Shampoo said before she could stop herself.  The
impact of Akane's words and her own reply struck her a moment
later, and she glared at the other girl and turned her head away
to intently examine the detail on a creeping vine that had wound
its way up some of the porch railings from the garden.

But that's something Shamps only tried in fanfics, not for real...
though she probably would have if she had had the means.

Oy.  I would refute this, but everything I would have needed to say was 
already said by Mike Loader... So just pretend that I said what he did, 
'kay?

    "The lady I see in my dreams," Plum explained carefully, 
gripping her crayon in one small fist.  "She lives under the
earth and helps to keep the evil away."

"Silly kid. That's a picture of Lucy Van Pelt you're drawing!"

Someday I want to read a story where a character has a dream that
seems like a premonition, but turns out to just be a dream.

So write it.  ;p

"You know, I never wondered about this before, but how do you 
have a working phone out in the middle of nowhere like that?"

    The Guide glanced to the old-style rotary phone by the door
and shrugged.  "I know it works.  That is enough for me."

    "But how?  There's no phone lines out here, or..."

It tragic story of mabellniquan....

"Tragic story of phone monopoly broken up very short time ago..."

    The air of tension relaxed slightly.  Dai Jin threw a
friendly arm around Shampoo's shoulders.  "You did good, kid.
Come on back with me and have--"

    There was the wet sound of an impact.  Dai Jin gasped.  
Shampoo looked in shock at the bloodied arrowhead and the short 
length of wooden shaft protruding from Dai Jin's left breast, 
piercing her heart from behind.

"Have 'arrrrgh?' Why Shampoo want have arrrgh with you? Shampoo no
understand!"

"Arrrrgh..."

"Oh!  We going to visit Castle Arrrrgh and find holy grail?"

Fortunately, just as the fanfic was about to become incredibly silly, 
the author suffered a fatal attack of carpal-tunnel wrist syndrome.

<zoom out to shot of Harnum at computer>

Harnum:  Urk! <dies>

BTW, any particular reason why Die, Jim didn't get <angle brackets>
with that last line? Not that I mind -- I've always thought that the
reader should be able to tell the language by context anyway -- but
you really oughtta be consistent.

Yup.  Purely an error on my part.  Will fix.

    "I call it suspicious," Ryoga answered.  "And whatever
happened, these two--" He indicated the two Phoenix with his
hand.  "--were prisoners, and had nothing to do with it.  
Whatever your laws are, I hope you don't execute people for
crimes they don't commit."

He's right, but it seems a bit odd for Ryoga to be pointing this out.
He's a bit gullible, and tends to get carried away with his passions.

He's gullible in certain situations, yes, but can also have the 
occassional insight that no one else does (his early detection of the 
Phoenix in V37).  He's also changed a bit from the manga Ryoga by this 
point; circumstances have forced him to become a little less controlled 
by his emotions.

Thanks as always for the comments, Gary.

Ciao,
-Alan Harnum

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