Thus ends the first episode of Happi's Legacy.

Okay, now, to avoid confusion, I'll tell you exactly why I'm being so mean
to Ranma right now.  I'm not writing about rape or murder, but how someone
(such as Ranma) would deal with it, and it's aftereffects.

I don't know, did I portray the flipping out very well? Anyway, please
comment, you know it helps my writing...:)

I await the flames! (With this story, it's a fact of life...:) Shadow
Dancer http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/6418 danceshadows@geocities.com

Strong, haunting, very very good.

Only two things ring false:

Akane walks up to me, making me back away, however involuntary.  Someting
in her eyes says she understood, "You were a boy?" she asks.  I nod, hoping
that she wouldn't get mad at me.  "Well, then.  Everyone here knows I don't
like boys...but you are a girl now, right?" I wince at the simple truth of
the matter, "Do you still want to be friends?" Akane looks at me, smiling.

Sorry, but I can't see Akane being this calm and reasoned -- not at this
point.  Yes, she's dealing with someone who's emptionally shattered, and
the circumstances are wildly different to their canonical meeting, so she's
likely to be a good deal more sympathetic toward Ranma.  But equally,
she's just gone through what should have been a rather drastic experience
herself (killing Happosai), and has just seen what's been done to Ranma.
She ought to be fairly upset at this point.

It seems to me that she's simply humouring Ranma's assertion that he was
a boy (after all, she never tries to get any kind of explanation, after
that one question).

Second point that seems a bit off:

"Doctor Tofu," Kasumi says sternly, "This is no time for your antics.
Ranma here needs your help." The man who Kasumi just identified as Tofu
suddenly stops gibbering as Kasumi's statement snaps him back to reality.
Kasumi warns him, as he reaches towards me, "She just had quite a few
shocks, I wouldn't go too fast if I were you."

This just doesn't sound like the canonical Kasumi at all.  But equally,
if this Kasumi is one who's been trained by Soun to help kill Happi, and
who can thus be expected to be a little less sweetness-and-light, then it
seems to be that she wouldn't have been tolerating Tofu's "antics" all
along, and that Tofu would therefore be far less likely to start them.

Hope this makes sense...

Cheers,
Angus

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angus MacSpon                                                Allen Gainsford
http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon/          http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon/