On Sat, 24 Jul 1999, Gary Kleppe wrote:

Vincent Seifert <seifertv@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:

Centaur

The long-awaited fic sequel in which Ranma takes up meditation. You
know, trying to find his....

heh.  I decided to keep "Centaur" as the title when I realized how many
hidden meanings and puns it implied.  That's just one of them.
 

    "Why, Nabiki!  He's your brother now!  You owe him some
concern!"

    "Yeah, right.  If Ranma got hit by a truck, I'd worry about
how badly the truck was damaged."

Pretty normal for Nabiki, actually. :)

Yeah, those radiators can be expensive.  :)

    A few minutes later, the house shook again as Ranma and
Akane dashed out of the bathroom and back up to their room.
Shortly thereafter, they both came into the main room wearing
their St. Hebereke's uniforms and dropped to sit at the table.

Not sure, but I think this ought to just be St. Hebereke.

Well, that makes me think of the uniform St. Hebereke himself is wearing,
rather than the uniforms worn by students at St. Hebereke's School for
Girls... the image alone is enough to put me off.  :)  Seriously, I'm not
sure about it either, so I just tried to be consistent.

    The locker room didn't appear to have changed at all in the

Suggest simply 'The room,' since the subsequent mention of the locker
makes it clear which room.

OK.  Which raises the interesting and general question of how early one
should set the scene; the short answer is "it depends", but I'd love to
see a discussion of the long answer. 

four days they'd been gone, but Akane opened her locker with
caution anyway; their friends were just about as odd as their
enemies,

But which one does Kodachi count as?

Depends who you ask.  :)
 

    Ranma smirked.  "Works for me."  She settled her shoulders
in the leotard and walked out.  Akane finished putting on her own
leotard and followed.

Suggest 'her own and' to avoid the repetition.

OK.

    Kodachi paid no attention.  "I would have been HAPPY to
inflict as much pain upon you as you desired, darling!"  She
produced a large mallet and wound up.  Ranma, stunned by her
enthusiastic leap to an erroneous conclusion, didn't have a
chance.  WHACK!

Mentioning the 'leap to an erroneous conclusion' seems like an
unnecessary explanation, IMO. The point's clear enough without it.

OK.  Another attempt at humor falls flat...  :)

    Yuriko poked her head out the trapdoor access to the roof of
the St. Hebereke's gymnasium and saw Kodachi, standing on the
roof some distance away clad in a cloak that rippled in the wind.
She made sure the headband that secured her dark-brown hair
behind her ears was firmly in place and emerged from the
trapdoor, wishing she was wearing more than a leotard.

wishing she were wearing, or wishing she had worn

Oops.  Thanks.

    ~~~~~ end chapter 1 ~~~~~

As before, this was quite enjoyable. I'm glad to see that things are not
"happy ever after" for our couple, and that both of them still make
mistakes and have a lot of learning to do. Kasumi still comes off as a
little too all-wise, but maybe that's just personal taste.

"Happily ever after" can be managed in one sentence; it's not a story.  :)
The mistakes and the learning are what "Centaur" will be about... that,
and a lot of fights.

As for Kasumi... sorry, Gary, but I just don't see "all-wise" in my
portrayal.  "Of normal intelligence", yes, and she has a little extra
perspective that three years of age difference brings, and being (mostly)
detached from the chaos helps, but she doesn't know everything, and
she will make mistakes... as you'll see.  :)

Thanks for the comments!

Vince Seifert    Network Analyst     seifertv@csus.edu
Techie: http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/
Fanfic: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/
CSUS hired me to build their LANs, not to give away the homeworld.