And the Jusenkyou-produced Pathfinders... do they have
any sort of life of their own, as Ryouga did when he was
temporarily a car?  

Depends on what was dunked in there.  The more mindless the
creature, the easier things will be for the driver.  Clearly,
dunking cats and dogs into those springs is asking for trouble.

This conversation was taking unwanted and somewhat
embarrassing turns.  Ryouga tried, unsuccessfully,
to stop it.  "Guys..."

Now that seems a little moderate for Ryouga, just in my
opinion.  He seems much more likely to act without thinking
based on his feelings, which would probably involve threats
of violence at the very least.  Just might want to consider
it, seeing as that's what he would always do if anybody said
anything about Akane.

Consider me warned.  So... should be something louder?

"You're kidding," said Ukyou weakly.  "Right?"

Nabiki looked left, then right, then leaned towards Ukyou.

"Yes, I am," she replied, that nasty grin returning to her
face. 

A peculiar jest for Nabiki to be making....

I like poking fun at genres.  This is my little tip of the
hat to the giant 'Nabiki is a lesbian' sector of Ranma
fan fiction :)

Also, it seems that the majority of Nabiki stories have her
as having few/no hobbies that don't relate to money.  I like
to think of her as a general mischief maker.  When she's not
in need of money, she's out for a leg to pull or a few words
to twist that'll cause a little havoc and a lot of fun (for her).
So you'll be seeing a somewhat less financial, more jovial
sort of Nabiki.

And stressed out... but more on that later.

One of them is to do what an enraged woman tells you to do,
unless fleeing is an option.

Surprising that Ranma has any of this sort of instinct left,
since he's been supressing it for so long...

I'll have to bring that up... thanks.

And the next arc of "Pursuit of Happiness" kicks off, much to the
delight of your many fans.  I'm interested, as always, to see where
things are going and how the various set-ups will pay off.  The 
Ukyou-nazi thing was very funny in this chapter.

This is a result of my surprise that no Seinfeld/Ranma fusions
or gags have been done yet.  I mean, c'mon, it's kinda out there.

The thing that bothers me about her is not necessarily her carbonated
personality, but how accomplished she is in spite of it.  She is an
intellectual genius, we are told.  It doesn't just seem to be that she
has a photographic memory - she comprehends as well as she recalls.
She is also a physical, martial-arts genius.  It's not just that she throws
around Kuno and such.  She predicted, if I recall correctly, that she 
would surpass Ranma's skill in two years (and since she is not stupid,
we can assume that she takes Ranma's own phenomenal learning curve
into account - so in essence, she is predicting that the 14 year old 
Kyoko will be a better martial artist than the 18/19 year old Ranma
will be).  While she may be wrong in her predictions, nothing in her
character thus far has indicated that she is capable of making 
mistakes of that sort.  

All in all, it seems a bit overkill.

And it's intentional.

I've decided to poke a little fun at the Annoying New Character
syndrome.  As with any Annoying New Character, she'll be 
remarkably perfect and do astounding things... except that
usually everyone just accepts it blindly or happily, and
nobody ever sees the absurdity of the situation.  I'm gonna
put Nabiki up to the task of being the voice of common sense,
saying all those things I've always wanted to say.  'That's
ridiculous', 'does anyone else here see something wrong about
this situation?', etc....

When I decided to dive off into this little side plot, I realized
the danger of actually creating my own massively Annoying New
Character if I pulled this off wrong.  And since I'm not done
yet, the risk is still there.  Reminds me of something Mike Loader
once told me about a plot idea of mine.

"Rod, this will be either really great, or really stupid."

Here's to stupid things that work great, mabye? n.n;;;;

-rod