From: kleppe@execpc.com (Gary Kleppe)
To: ffml@fanfic.com
Subject: Re: [FFML] [Ranma][Fanfic] Heart's Desire, parts 1-5 of 11
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 21:30:44 GMT

First off, thanks very much for the detailed C&C! My cohorts may 

want to

jump in for some of this, but in the meantime....

Douglas MacDougall <dougmacd@thecia.net> wrote:

       The first thing to come to mind, as it was all too often, 

was Ranma.

She thought she might be in love with him.  Should she spend her
wish to make him hers forever?  A part of Akane shouted no, that 

she

shouldn't waste her wish on that pervert; another part shouted yes,
that there was nothing she wanted more.  But the frightening 

thought

was that she might already have him.  Whenever she considered the

Heh.  And how frightening is it, Akane?

Imagine a lifetime of picking up Ranma's toenail clippings... 

*shudder*

And I was twisted.  Still though.  I can think of worse things than 
toenail clippings.  At least she's not flossing his toes.  o_o;

       She could do something about Ranma's other fiancees.  See 

how

Shampoo likes being a cat all the time, or Ukyou being a real man.

The power.  Oh... yesssss!

..she thought, not realizing that *other* people would soon have 

their

turns....

Akane giggled, shaking her head.  She would never do that.  She 

wasn't

the vindictive sort; she didn't really want to hurt anyone, just to

"I only hit Ranma becuase he deserves it!"  :)

She doesn't plan that, it just... happens. ^_-

       Kunou?  Akane dismissed the idea.  Her sisters?  Here was 

some room

for improvement, she thought.  Kasumi was a few cards short of a 

full

deck, Nabiki as cold as ice, and as for herself, well, she had real

I'm not sure I agree with the characterization of Nabiki as cold as 

ice.

I picture her as something of a hedonist, really.

I wouldn't say I do either, but then, this is Akane's opinion.

I remember reading another story where Nodoka reframed the peices 

of the

Nanban mirror into personal mirrors for "Ranma's women."  Everyone 

wanted

to see the future "where they married Ranma."  Everyone except 

Akane, who

wanted to see the future where everyone was happy.

I think I'd trust Akane the most with a wish.

Well, I would too, but to be fair, that fic (Deep Reflections by 

SKJAM)

isn't canon, and one could just as easily write one the other way.

This is probably one of the best peices in the collection.  That 

might in

part be due to the fact that this author didn't have to work with 

anybody

else's results, and so was able to create a stand alone peice.

That's true. In fact, this one was initially written to be a
stand-alone, and has appeared on FFML and RAAC before.

It would be interesting to see how this would have turned out if 
everyone were to write each character with the same conditions and as 
a stand alone piece.  I think it would have turned out -very- 
differently.  My colleagues may or may not disagree with this point.

       Then when Mrs. Tendo met Ranma, all she could do was keep 

asking

questions. Did he make good greades in school? What did he plan to 

do

Grades

D'Oh! Something like five people have already pointed this out, and 

it

still managed to stay uncorrected.

       "Yeah." A voice came from behind. "I hear he even talks to
himself!"

This quote's a little weird.  I suppose he's insulting Ranma 

talking out

loud, but Ryoga really *does* talk to himself...

Just a bit of fun at his rival's expense.

Def-definitely Just some fun.  Definitely.  Yeah.  ^_-

       Deciding it would be a good idea to stop and try to ask for
directions again, he approached a nearby teenage girl. "Excuse me, 

could

You know, it might be a little more fair to the readers to describe 

this

"teenage girl"...

Good point.

       "So I would have to...." Tsubasa looked thoughtful for a 

moment.

"On second thought, darling Akane is the one I really love."

I'm glad to see an accurate depiction of Tsubasa.  He doesn't 

obsess over

Ukyo; he obsesses over every cute girl he meets!

Yeah, but only one at a time! Anyway, this is the way I've always
written him.

So originally, Akane just made a wish.  Now the locket talks to 

Ryoga.

Hmmm.  This implementation of this plot device probably should have
been better thought out.

Maybe. I figure that the locket wants people to make wishes on it, 

and

will do what's necessary -- in Akane's case, she already knew what it
could do.

That's how I interpreted the locket, and I think that's what everyone 
else interpreted as well.  It's interesting to see that while we all 
(possibly) thought the same way, we all executed it differently.  
Just how far -would- the locket have gone, and just how far would 
each wish go/affect each person?

Well, it looks like Ryoga grew up after the events at Jusendo.  Or 

maybe

after he tried to win Akane's love with the koi fishing rod, and 

seeing

what it got him.  ;)

He was actually quite a bit more mellowed out towards Akane by the 

end

of the series. When she was nearly dead, he didn't even jump up to
throttle Ranma; he just stood by.

Good move.  Now you don't have to worry about a later author 

dumping you

into Spring of Drowned Girl.  :j

Hmmm... probably been done. :)

Cute.  Appropriate behavior for Ryoga, and you explained how 

Tsubasa got

a hold of his diguise.

Heh. Though how he fit into it is another question.... :)

I'm not going there.  o.o;;;

Chapter 3: Hikaru Gosunkugi
A Sorcerer's Dream

[...]

Okay.  No comments.  I just don't like this part.  It's dark, and it
portrays Hikaru as some sort of magician wannabe.  Is there any 

evidence

of this in anime or manga?

Not other than him carrying around the candles and trying to use 

voodoo

on Ranma, no. It's a fanfic cliche, I guess.

True.  Very true, but I think that the story was still carried out 
very well.  We've seen Gos try a couple of tricks in the manga, so 
who's to say that Gos might not actually want to be a powerful 
wizard?  On the other hand, who's to say he really does want to?

I think the chapter was really well written, and as a chapter, I 
think it actually stood out quite well on its own.

And no, I didn't write this particular chapter.  ^_-

       Mousse sighed as his mind went into a mental rewind of the 

past

twenty-four hours.  After the funeral of the Gosunkugi boy, he'd
returned to the restaurant to work his usual shift.  Shampoo was as
boisterous and as bubbly as ever, though in retrospect he found it
horribly annoying -- her normally educated Chinese traded for the

Why would he suddenly find it annoying?

Presumably because his wish has made him see things differently?

After reading through the entire fic, I think that this particular 
chapter suffers from no enough foreshadowing on this part.  It's not 
clear enough that this is really the case.

I agree with Mousse's statements, but I'm wondering why Ranma 

suddenly

wants to get Shampoo away.

You know, I'm guessing that Gary didn't write this part.  :j

How'd ya guess? :) (Now which part(s) *did* I write? ^_^)

I'd say, but that'd just ruin the fun.  ^_-

       "I know because I granted your wish."

Consider my amulet inconsistency remark restated.

Point taken. With nine authors and no editorial control, consistency 

is

bound to be pretty hard to maintain.

Again, I agree.  I think I pointed this out in another reply before 
this - but I'll say it again.  I think it was really tough for 
everyone to maintain consistency when we were all plotting out what 
we wanted to do the minute the offer was made to continue the 
fic/plot-thread.  ^_^;;

Just how many mind-altering Amazon spices are there, anyway?  Like, 

zero?

There was the kairaishi mushroom, but it isn't a spice, nor did it 

sound

particularly Amazon.  (Shampoo bought it from a restaurant 

supplier!)

I thought Cologne said that there *weren't* any such drugs like 

that; if

there were, she and Shampoo would have used them on Ranma.

I agree with you; this is a fanfic convention that pretty surely 

isn't

true in the canon. Still, Mousse only says this, and the spices never
get used, so it could be that Cologne's been giving Mousse some wrong
information and the spices are actually harmless.

Certainly.  However, it's nice to spice up a fic every now and then, 
ne.

The locket's got another M.O, I see.
Genie of the locket, meet "Genie of the Ring"...

Heh. I'm still working on my own Ranma-genie story....

Another mixed bag.  I like Akane and Ryoga's stories, and Shampoo's 

was

pretty good, but I couldn't deal with Gos or Mousse's.  Not for any 

technical

reason; I just don't buy the premises.

That's cool. With so many different authors and stories, I'd be
surprised if anyone liked them all. Thanks again for the comments!

Very True, Gary.  And even amongst those who actually participated in 
the fic writing, I bet there's dissent about how good all the 
chapters were.

Thanks again for the C&C!

Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html

_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com