"Miller, Bert" wrote:

"Miller, Bert" wrote:

Three girls looked at one... and .... fell to the ground and
began to cry.

This struck me as extremely OOC at first.  Further down, the joke
when they league together _almost_ justifies the OOC-ness here, but
not quite.  I think it would have worked better if, instead

of crying,

the three were just very polite to each other.  This is reasonably
IC, but Ranma, being unobservant, is not necessarily aware of that.

I strongly disagree.  An immediate extreme emotional swing is
very much
in character for Ukyo and Shampoo--less so for Akane (at least, not in
this direction) but still possible.  And this is one of the
few times in
ANY fanfic when I felt that Takahashi could have actually written the
scene I just read.

Being very polite to each other wouldn't work at all.

Well, I read the scene again, a couple of times.  Now I think you're
partly right; I find I can swallow the scene for all three girls,
easily, _IF_ I pretend to myself that each is alone with Ranma.

My problem with the scene as written, however, is that I can't suspend
my disbelief in it _when all three girls are present_ .  Inter-girl
competitiveness in Ranma's presence would seem to preclude this. 

But they _are_ competing--just differently.  Note how quickly the scene
goes from we're-sorry to no-fighting to
Ranma-happiness-protection-league.  They're each competing to prove to
Ranma that they don't have to fight with the other two.  Martial arts
not-being-a-nasty-bitch, if you like.

In
particular, Akane almost never does anything which Shampoo and Ukyou do
together.  [As for "Takahashi could have written it", this scene is one
of the few in "Girl Days" so far where I _don't_ feel that.  

Most original-flavor fanfic writers fix the characters into set patterns
of behavior.  Takahashi, on the other hand, loves this sort of
quick-reversal gag and writes her characters flexible enough to handle
them.
    

The scene
doesn't differentiate Akane from U & S the way Takahashi always does.]

Granted, but I think that can be handled just by altering the dialogue a
little.  I don't see any strong differences between the three in this
situation.  

However, my revised reading of the scene suggests a couple of possible
tweaks which I think would fix it.  (Feel free to completely ignore
these, of course; I'm just spouting off here.)

1)  Have the girls deduce Ranma's problem _outside_ his presence,
decide on the fix, and announce it to them as a committee.  I don't
recommend this one, though; it's not funny.

Plus, without Ranma's "why can't you all just get along" complaint,
there's no real incentive for them to get along.
 

2)  Have the girls separate slightly as they pursue Ranma, so that
each approaches Ranma from a different direction, tracking him down
as it were, and unaware of each other's presence.  Each believes
Ranma's speech is directly solely to herself.  Each believes that
dedicating herself to Ranma's weekend happiness will prove her
superiority over the other girls, so they shout out their resolution,
synchronicitly in unison.  To enhance Takahashi-ness, keep Akane
silent until after U & S have signed up, then have her slink off and
have a private moment with Ranma later.

The trouble with this is that it's much more complicated, and relies
strongly on coincidence.  It would be hard to make it both belivable and
understandable without losing the humor.  Of course, I don't think the
original scene's broken, so I'm not likely to have much enthusiasm for
the repair blueprints.

-- David