Criticism at the top, comments at the bottom.  Snippage throughout.
(There's very little to criticize, so why quote the whole thing?)

And now, a little

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[...]

"Well, the only other explanation I can think of is that when you split
you somehow were pregnant. We already know that the magic that Cologne
used wasn't exactly stable."

Make it clear that she wasn't "somehow pregnant" at the time she was
split, but *due* to the fact that she split:  "...Well, the only other
explanation I can think of, is that when the magic split you, it
somehow made you pregnant, too..."

[...]

"And then when Sanma split from you, the baby didn't split with her."

Why didn't the baby split with her?  Without an explantion, I'm going
to have to believe that Ranko managed to get herself pregnant the "old
fashioned way"!

Maybe you could state something like, "The second time you split, the
magic only affected your body."  I forget what she did.  Drink it?  Use
it like an ointment?  In either case, there's a plausible reason for
the baby not being affected.

[...]

Ranko didn't know what to say. This should have made her very happy, but
a part of her insisted it wasn't fair for Ranma and Sanma. "I... I think
you should marry all three of us."

Akane shook her head. "Not now. Not like this. That marriage would have
been stressful enough, but now you need to be able to avoid stress and
concentrate on bringing a beautiful baby into the world."

[...]

"And I have to be able to concentrate on you. I can't do that while working
on keeping a very unusual marriage from blowing up in all our faces."

Akane says that she can't concentrate on Ranko and keep a three-way marriage
from blowing up.  Now, obviously you need Akane to think this in order for
the wedding scene to work, but I was expecting one of the Ranmas to make a
point like this:

"If you say you're going to marry us when the baby's born anyway, and you
just want to take care of Ranko, why not just marry us all now, and we'll
let you care care of Ranko?  At least this way, we won't completely feel
like your leftovers.  Isn't it enough that Ranko's going to get your
attention for the next seven months?  Does she really need to be the first
to be married to you, too?"

How would Akane respond?  I don't know, and I think maybe I should.

[...]

"Technically? No. I have arranged for some paperwork and licenses that the
bureaucrats should never be able to figure out. I had actually lined this
minister up when there was a chance Akane was going to marry all three of
them, so he's pretty understanding about the situation. He does a lot of
lesbian marriages, so it's no big deal for him." Before Akane could object,
Nabiki added, "Not that is one, but you know what I mean."

"Not that this is one,

[...]

Well, I didn't get thrown by the plot twists, or upset that the marriage
didn't happen.  When I read, I just go along for the ride, without any
preconceptions.  And it was a fun ride.

I especially liked Genma "precious daughter/ungrateful son" line, as well
as Ukyo and Ryoga's remarks at the wedding.  I liked Sanma's trick.  It was
well thought out on her part, and made a nice segue into the flashback.

I was kind of surprised that Ranko didn't react when Tofu said she 6 or 7
months to live, though...  You did say that she didn't pick up on the
pregnancy angle.

The only downpoint for this part was (IMO) the lack of explanations.
If they were cleared up, I'd have a lot easier time willingly suspending
my disbelief.

Later,


Doug

----
Douglas MacDougall     Art and fiction available at my homepage:
dougmacd@thecia.net    http://www.thecia.net/~dougmacd/fanworks/