"Miller, Bert" <bert.miller@unisys.com> wrote:
Nice. Very nice.
Thanks. ^_^
You have some kind of problem with a few spurious periods.
In a few other places, periods appear where there should be
commas.
Just my sloppy editing, I think. Really must switch to a bigger font
size when I'm writing directly in my E-mailer....
Bamboo poles vibrate back and forth like the tines of a
tuning fork. The waters of the Jusenkyo pool in front of me
swirl, casting ripples outward from the poles.
Nice imagery.
Always the hardest part of writing these things. If I could just say
"I'm at Jusenkyo, and there are walls up now" it would go a lot quicker.
:)
Ukyou as narrator confirmed, and the hook is firmly implanted
in your reader. It would take much more willpower than I
have not to continue reading at this point.
;) and I bet you've always wanted to write Ukyou saying that...
Heh heh. This is *not* a piss-off-the-fanboys story.... ^_^
Youth, as they say. is wasted on the young.
Period where you want comma. And nice comment, too true.
Yep. Being a former youth myself, I know. :-)
can't get out.* What did it mean?
Interesting how she assumes it _must_ have a meaning.
Well, I think most dreams have *some* sort of meaning, even if it's just
an inner psychological one.
nothing will stop it. I've heard people talk about the
'stream of time,' but that's not what it is at all. It's a
raging river with huge
waterfalls and rapids. We hang on to anything that floats as
the current pulls us downstream, trying desperately to avoid
drowning or being smashed against a rock, all the while
trying to enjoy the
scenery because we know we'll never see it again.
Again, nice imagery. Rings true as the sort of philosophizing
a very old Ukyou might indulge in.
Opinion seems to be divided on this one.
10,000 yuan ? At the moment, yuan are trading at 8.2 to the
U.S. dollar. That's a lot of inflation.
Yeah, it is. Though an international one-of-a-kind attraction like this
is bound to be *somewhat* expensive....
When I got to this point, I had no clue who "Pu Langmu" was.
I figured it out later, but you may want to give a bit more
of a hint to those readers who only know her as Plum.
I'll see if I can work it in.
This suggests some specific episode(s) in Ukyou's past which
has led her to this particular philosophizing, but we get no
other clue. The idea that, at sixteen, she never even wondered
about other boys is clear, but the thought about safety isn't.
It's not so much any particular event as it is the way in which her
life's changed over the years. She'd started out doing some relatively
exciting things (training in spatula-fu by the raging sea, chasing after
Ranma, and then, um, chasing after Ranma ^_^) then settled into the dull
life of a mother and full-time resterateur, and to some extent she
misses the former.
here that was created when I was young? The Akaneniquan?"
Presumably this conversation is in Japanese, or Ukyou couldn't
be taking part in it. So why "Akaneniquan"? Why not "Spring
of Drowned Akane", as you do above? I can see why you might
want something short, for later in your story, but it seems
a bit inconsistent at this point.
Mainly I just thought the Chinese sounded aesthetically here. I'll take
another look at it. It's not uncommon for people to drop foriegn words
into a conversation when they know the listener understands them,
n'est-ce pas? :-)
And I assume you're using "quan" instead of "chuan" because
the former is pinyin, the current correct romanization?
Yeah. That's just me; I romanize all my Chinese in pinyin.
"That wasn't exactly what she said."
Ooo. Twist the hook even more. The astute reader ties this
together with Plum's words and Ukyou's opening, and gets
the picture, partially.
That's one thing I was wondering when I wrote this -- at which point the
readers would figure out what U&S' plan is.
??? _Very_ unexpected political arrangements; in fact, given
that this is China, I'm not entirely sure I can swallow this,
at least without more detail. Say this is ~2050; I'd expect
Chinese companies to own a good bit of the U.S.
But not even Amazons can fight against
world-wide disease epidemics, not without medicines that they
lacked the know-how and equipment to make themselves.
Well, this is a start. A rather apocalyptic one, but okay.
If early enough in the next century, yes, I can see where
this could take the wind out of China's sails. You could have
the epidemics exascerbated by the air quality and other
environmental problems China's reportedly having.
That's a good idea. Overall, I don't want to get too deep into "visions
of the future" stuff here. A future story has to do this to a certain
extent, but it's not what this one is primarily about, so I'm leaving a
lot of things untold.
Then it came back to me. It was the exact phrase her daughter
had used the last time anyone saw her; an Amazon's last
resort -- withdrawing from the sisterhood and severing all
relations with it.
Ooo. LOTS of untold stories here. I like it.
Also a chance to plug "A Different Faith." :-)
More untold stories. And I can just see Ukyou and Shampoo
trying to explain this to a child of Akane's:
"Ranko, would you LISTEN TO ME!" I pleaded, dodging
desperately.
"Auntie Ukyou NO BAKA! Auntie Shampoo NO BAKA! HOW COULD
YOU!" Ranko screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. They
didn't prevent her from tearing my spatula from my hands as
easily as taking candy from a baby, though. I could see the
murderous glint in her eyes as she approached...
Heh heh. What goes around comes around, doesn't it. :-)
The ending is very interesting, also. Ukyou doesn't ask Plum
before taking this action; it may very well have made things
much worse for both Akane and Ranma, for all she knows. She
acts on impulse, to make herself feel better for what she had
to do. She has no reason at all, other than fleeting whimsy,
to think that this is any improvement for Ranma and Akane.
And of course, if Ukyou _did_ make things worse, there's no
reason for Plum to say so now; the damage is done.
True... but on the other hand, maybe this was *supposed* to happen, and
Plum just isn't letting on. More of that ambiguity. :)
All in all, very nice work.
Thanks very much for the commentary.
Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html