On Sun, 25 Jul 1999, Gary Kleppe wrote:

"Miller, Bert" <bert.miller@unisys.com> wrote:

I thought you did foreshadow it, with the "ice forming from his
aura" scene earlier.  At the point I read it, I was aware that
the lack of change was _probably_ of Ranma's doing.  I think
you could improve the scene and aftermath a bit, though:

     Ranma's jaw muscles flexed.  "Make your test."  *Sorry,
Akane... it was good while it lasted.*  She racked her brain for
a way out of the trap, a miracle that would turn the hot water
into cold before it touched her--

Perhaps adding something like "...touched her.  At the last second,
Ranma saw it:  he could--" to the above paragraph would get the
point across.

An alternative would be to show the scene entirely from the POV of the
headmistress. She could feel a chill go across the room, but we still
wouldn't know exactly what happened until Ranma tells us later on.

Interesting notion.  I'll see if I can do this.  I have this problem, that
sometimes a scene will set up like concrete in my head and I can't seem to
make it work any other way, and I haven't figured out a solution for that
yet. 
 

BTW, now that Ranma knows this technique, will he try to teach it to a
certain part-time piglet? The P-chan thing is something with which this
series hasn't dealt yet, and when and if the truth comes out it'll be a
big hurdle for Ranma and Akane.

Richard Lawson has been there already for DnR, and he did it so well that
I have little hope of improving on it, so I'm going to try to avoid that
issue unless I come up with something new to say about it.

As for the technique... I'm not sure Ryouga can learn it.  He can't do the
Hiryu Shoten Ha (in spite of being right there for a lot of the
training), he never learned Soul of Ice, and he doesn't seem to have the
control of his emotions or his ki that is necessary.  It seems
incompatible with his nature, to me.

I think it also would have helped to make it a bit clearer that
Ranma was back in male form at the Dojo.  Possibly something
about Kasumi glancing over the planes of his chest.

Yeah, certainly couldn't hurt.

I agree.

I don't have a problem with your characterization of Ukyou; her
reaction is unusual enough that I was interested in what would
happen next, rather than skeptical.

If what we've seen is the end of it, and Ukyo's going to quietly wander
off, then I agree with Ronny that it's OOC for her. However, I'm not
convinced that that's the case. She may have accepted not getting Ranma
on an intellectual level, but still harbor a lot of repressed anger and
pain. Or, OTOH, it's possible that she hasn't accepted it at all. Maybe
she's decided to remain in the background a while because she expects
Ranma and Akane's relationship to self-destruct when left alone. (It
won't work, of course, but it's a better idea than some of the schemes
she's tried in the original series. ^_^)

I'm not done with Ukyo, not by a long shot.  Akane and Ranma both feel
strong guilt and indebtedness towards her, and those feelings can turn
into stories.  Ukyo's feelings are strong and complex too, of course.
And then there's Konatsu, who really deserves more fanfic roles, just
because he's nifty... even though he's not Ukyo's type.  :)

This portrayal of Kodachi was not one of your better ones, IMO.
It was consistent with what we saw of Kodachi _in school_ in
"Taming", but, personally, I'd rather read scenes with the
fascinating, sexy-but-spoiled-rotten Kodachi you showed us
in "Taming" rather than the borderline psychotic.  This reaction,
that Ranma must be a masochist, seemed more like the latter.
I want to see Kodachi maneuver Ranma into romantic situations
that he doesn't know how to get out of, or the best way out of. 

I have to disagree with you here. I didn't see Kodachi as psychotic. She
simply leapt to the wrong conclusion about Ranma. Fanfic writers have
postulated the same thing about Ranma, so why can't Kodachi?

heh.  Cute.  :)

There's more mayhem and hijinks in store for Ranma from Kodachi's
direction.  I like the character too much to deal her out entirely or do
her lasting harm... but she can't get what she wants without doing Akane
or Ranma lasting harm, and you know who's going to win THAT one.

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.