On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Jason Liao wrote:

On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Rhea Seraph wrote:

	Nodoka woke up when something struck her in the face.  It was
Genma, flailing about.   A little bit of observation showed he was
apparently 'eating in his sleep'.

Heh.  Though I'm confused how this meshes with the earlier dream sequence
he was having.  Unless the dream persona conjured up a huge feast for him
'for tea'.

Genma is having a different dream, this one about eating.  
 

Ranma-chan munched on it while she tried to remember how got there.

Now, did you mean how she got there, or how it(okonomiyaki) got there.

how she got there.  DOH!

May I make a guess?

Tendo Soun:  Nae'blis

Nope.  The Dark One isn't that desperate.
 

The nice soft bed back in Cairhien was no longer so
comforting; it was too big and felt empty.  She felt empty.  I need some
loving, she thought, then laughed at herself.

This would be a wonderful line, if I were not confused as to why a bed
many miles away should be comforting to Akane.  If she were actually -at-
Cairhien sleeping alone, that would be a different issue, but as it is...

She is back in Cairhien.  I need to make that clear.  She left Ebou Dar
after the events of the previous chapter.

 

	She finally drifted off to sleep, thrashing wildly;

While Akane generally does thrash while sleeping, to say she does so while
-drifting- off to sleep seems little odd.  Not that it's implausible,
considering it's Akane, but perhaps this line could be written
differently?

I thrash while trying to sleep, but it is intended to convey she thrashed
all night.

	Ukyou sighed.  "He's dead."

	"�"

	 ^
Weird character code here.

aaargh.  
 

Hmm...so I'm not the only person who does the manga ellipses pause,
instead of describing it.  Nice to know.

Instead, she simply shivered with a mixture
of desire, disgust, and terror.  "U�U�U�"  

				    ^^^^^^
More weird codes.  In fact, they're everywhere.

I had some trouble with this. Hopefully, the next draft will be control
code free.  Aaarghle.

 

	Cuts to the chase, Nodoka thought.  Here comes World War III.

Considering her own stake in this, she's awfully calm.  While I've never
seen the anime concerning Nodoka, I've heard that she's properly
characterized as an obsessive person.  And this is something that would
certainly interfere with her plans of family honor.

Nodoka hasn't had time to build up the level of commitment to the marriage
thing that she has to the finding her son thing.  She's also one of the
calmer cast members, which isn't saying much.  But this is one of the
things I'm arguing with myself about on this.

 > > "WHAT?" Soun bellowed.
"You are marrying
Ranma and THAT IS > > THAT!!!"  The Giant Demon Head came out to play.

*Zot*

As Akane lowered her hand, a maid entered the tent and began dragging out
the black and crispy Soun.

She can't channel in girl form.
And she's gained some maturity, if not so much as is probably really
needed to handle this.

But having her do a channeling demonstratiion is a good idea I'll have to
work into the next draft.

	Tenobia sat and watched the young man practice.  While he had
swiftly demonstrated he had only the intelligence of a pea, and he still
couldn't explain where he had come from, he was one of the best swordsman
she had ever seen.

Funny, I'd have thought with his archaic modes of speech, Kuno'd fit right
in with the picture of an eccentric nobleman.  And think!  When he
babbles about evil sorcerers, he could be right!  When he talks about his
noble lineage, he could also be taken as right!

HE knows nothing about anything in the world and babbles on about places
that don't exist.  

	"Not unless you want to be eating panda okonomiyaki some time
soon," Ranma replied.  "Look, there just ain't no way I'm gonna be
marrying Akane, whether or not I want to.  About the only way would be if
we all became Aiel or something, which ain't happening.

Though one has to wonder.  They could all probably kick the Aiel's asses,
with the exception of Rand since he could just blast them.  What exactly
would hinder them from adoption by a clan?

The Aiel generally don't adopt outsiders.  

	Nodoka could not condone a group marriage, but it seemed as if
nothing else could solve this.

You come back to this a little too often for me to just think it's an
offhand comment...

It's not really an ideal solution, as a fair # of the potential pairings
in such a thing don't match up. (Ukyou has no particular interest in
Alyssa, Alyssa still tends to think of Ranma as a woman, etc).  But people
think of weird things when they 

	"You promised you'd make sure Ranma and Akane got married!"  Genma
shouted.

Ah.  So it -might- have been a skilled Compulsion after all...

Mesaana is good at that.

 

	She had had enough.  "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO TRIED TO KIDNAP HER!  AND
MURDER ME!  I HAVE HAD MORE THAN I CAN STAND!"  Fear was gone.  Despair
was gone.  Anger ruled.  "DIE!"  

She shouldn't be able to channel, then.  I thought women couldn't channel
unless calm and concentrating (Nynaeve being the exception)

If that was true, Lanfear couldn't have gone on her destructive rampage in
Fires of Heaven.  However, to learn how to channel, one has to manage
calm.  Eventually, you get to where you do it instinctively and your
mental state doesn't matter so much.

 > > "Perhaps I

should have compelled him, but this way produces longer lasting results.
Compelled people become stupid and make mistakes."

But earlier, you stated that Ryouga couldn't fight againt a Compellation,
implying that he -was- Compelled.

Where did I say that?  I canna remember, I must confess.
 

Addressing your concerns on Nodoka:

Again, I have not seen the anime, so I don't know this info first hand.
But if she is obsessed with honor and the marrage as much as I have been
told, then she is taking the foul up much too calmly.  Having her see the

In the manga, Nodoka is not obsessed with the marriage, as far as I can
tell.  She's very focused on seeing her son again, but she doesn't seem to
have an particular attachment to the Ranma/Akane marriage.  

Thanks a lot for the commentary!

John Biles
Emperor of all He Surveys
http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html

"Do I get the hundred gold if I shoot the barbarian leader with a cruise
missle?"
It turned out that he did.