At 03:32 PM 4/21/99 -0400, you wrote:

	Hi!

	Missed one or two of these along the way, but read enough of them
to get the basic concept underlying the series -- and it's interesting.

Most important thing, to me-- it be interesting.

Well written, too.

Thanks! Coming from you (fellow English student, and guy-who-writes-well),
that's a big compliment (especially since, well... I mentioned the
drafty nature of it and all).
	(Ah! Respect! I'm finally getting the respect from my only slightly
inferiors! er... excuse me while my ego and I have a bit of a chat, will
you?) :)

	Of course, I disagree with some of your conclusions, but I suppose
that's to be expected in a series like this.  Take this chapter, for

Heck, _I_ disagree with the conclusions at least half the time... don't
mean I won't defend how they were reached or anything, mind you, but then
again I think the logic is supposed to be somewhat flawed in most cases
anyway-- hence the extremism and the not-so happy endings.... ^_^
	Whee! Satan in Paradise Lost isn't the only one who can argue using
faulty logic!

instance.  As you suggested in you after-prologue, whether it's a
'success' is unclear -- the person he becomes has, in my opinion, lost
more than he gained; that, of course, is a matter of perspective.  But the
major discovery he makes -- the seemingly paradoxical control of wild
emotion, the harnessing of untamed urges -- isn't that big of a
revelation, really.  True, it seems to lie at the halfway point between
Happi and Cologne (or your interpretation of them, anyway), but that's
only because they're such extremes in themselves.
	I have no pretentions of having a profound understanding of the
martial arts, but that shifting between relaxed and tensed states, the
conscious control of intense emotions, is an essential and underlying
concept in many styles; at least, it has been in what I've studied.  I
guess I just had trouble accepting Ranma's realization justifying such
manifestations of his awakening skill as shifting skin and roiling
innards.  Then again, this is anime, eh?  These guys always feel things a

That's something I myself had trouble justifying. I mean, the realisation
(to me) just didn't seem all that profound or altering, and I couldn't
quite capture a big enough change in viewpoint for Ranma to get that whole
skill thing....
	Mind you, it's never said that the shifting skin and roiling innards
(like that phrase, roiling innards-- <sniff> don't see those words used
often enough) actually happened-- no one else noticed them, for instance.
As for his skill? The only mention of his prowess comes in the Happi/Cologne
get beat up segment, and that is, in a way, a bit of an echo of
Synthesis-- Broken, and perhaps Antithesis (more the former, mainly the Taro
encounter).

lot more intensly than you'd otherwise think.  (You!  You stole my kumquat
when I was five!  I hate kumquats, but for that insult, I pledge eternal
blood feud upon you, and your dog, too!)

Whew! For a sec there I thought I was going to have to throw that argument
out! ^_^

	Most intersting part of the story, in my opinion, was the shift to
Ryoga's POV at the ending.  His contemplation whether or not to follow
Ranma and learn from him seemed the true climax of the fic.  I would've
liked to see more of it -- an actually look into the payoff, and cost, of
such dedication to a single objective.  And with Ryoga, you already have
someone with a good idea of the cost of obsession...

Oddly enough, I wasn't too sure I wanted to do the ending with Ryoga-- have
him accept and all that. Didn't quite seem to fit in with the whole Soul of
Ice themes and stuff, but I thought, "dang, wouldn't it be nice if for once
I actually...." That, and I found myself somewhat drawn to it, as well. In
a way I think Ryoga usurped Ranma's role in this one....

	Anyway, I'm starting to ramble here, so... good fic.  Complaints

Nothing wrong with rambling! I'm a compulsive rambler! Why, some of my
best ideas or arguments come from rambling! Must use more exclamation
points!

aside, liked it, and the shifting POV style worked well; only once or
twice did I not know immediately who'se eyes we were looking through.

I tried to make the shifting viewpoint thing work and be fairly easy
to recognise who was speaking early on, rather than having their names
as titles for their respective sections. The viewpoint thing is what
sparked the fic, actually... was the genesis for it all.
(so I'm kinda glad it worked) ^_^
	It was kinda fun... well, interesting at least, to use so many
viewpoints and to try and get them to be at least somewhat
sympathetic and not horrendously out of character (not that I'm adverse
to making them OOC, as evinced by previous SoI stories, but still).

	So does this end the Synthesis series...?

Dunno. Synthesis-- Broken was to be my last Soul of Ice fic (but then
I did the epilogue for it in Errata), so obviously I'm not to be trusted
when I say that it is....
	I might go on and do Hypothesis (another person's taking that one
as well, but I haven't seen anything about it in a while, and I've got
an ending scene in my head, which if I can cobble together a beginning
for it or some narrative style/gimmick, would be enough)



Matthew Lewis is:
	Matt on IRC
	Sojiro_Seta on Kawaiimuck
	maybeso@ican.net
	a casualty of causality
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Reality and I have this arrangement, see?
I ignore it, and it ignores me. we're quite happy
with the way it works, really.
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