This is my beta copy. PLEASE C+C it, I got absolutely NO
response on my
alpha copy.
Alpha copy? Hmm....
Don't know if it's the list or my machine, but I've got the past
800+ messages to the list available here in my FFML folder (with another
god-knows-how-many archived), and I don't see it ANYWHERE.
Ah well.
Best read in a monowidth font, with tab stops at six characters.
"There is no spoon"
-The Matrix
SPPOOOOoooonnnn!!
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
-- File: ranma.matrix.one-and-a-half.1.txt
reading.this.can.cause.eye.damage
Ranma 1/2 is property of Rumiko Takahashi
The Matrix is property of Warner Brothers Movies
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Special notice: In regards to Whitewolf's unwarranted attack on my
Alpha copy...
As a sidenote, the first scene in my fic bears no more than a
passing resemblance to the scene that WhiteWolf claims I stole from
Matrix0.5.1. The joke that he claims I stole from it was in fact
inspired by Phillip Masters' message, the same one that I believe
inspired his use of the joke. However, he also claims that I stole
the entire scene, which is simply ridiculous considering the lack of
resemblance.
One question: was Whitewolf's 'attack' public? If not, this could
be considered a breach of netiquette.
I didn't see an attack on your alpha version, either... hmm...
better check the ol' mail server again. <sigh>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"I assume you by now are quite confident that what I told you
before, wasn't exactly the literal truth."
"Yes, I figured that. As it turned out, I am the One."
"Well, then you may not want to hear what I have to tell you
this time."
At this, the man listening nodded slightly. "Yeah, I do."
"You see, it's not so clear-cut as it seemed before. You are
the one, but at the same time, you're not. There is another. Not
exactly the one, but not exactly -not- the one either. You might
call him the Half," She laughed, as if at her own private joke.
"You'll know him when you see him. This time, stay a while and
think." With this, she gestured Neo into the waiting room
The Oracle looked up at the sign over her door and smiled. It
said a different thing each time. The Last time Neo had been there,
it had read in Latin, "Know thyself." This time, although Neo had
not bothered to look at it, it read, in Japanese, "Rumiko
Takahashi's Ranma 1/2."
*** * * * ***
<wince>
Ooookaay... not quite the intro I was expecting, but it'll work, I
guess. IMO, though, you jump into this bit WAAAAAY too fast. It flows too
fast - by the third paragraph, I was still wondering just whatinhell was
going on.
And without more descriptive narration, anybody who has not seen The
Matrix will be completely, totally, and utterly lost.
Neo did as the Oracle had told him, sitting down in an empty
seat. He noticed a stack of comic books that he didn't notice
before. "hmm... 'Ranma 1/2..' I have some time, might as well take
my mind off this.."
One question: were all the young'uns that were in the movie still
around?
Little did he know that while reading those comics, his mind
was squarely on the issue at hand.
*** * * * ***
Back on the Nebuchadnezzar, Neo was telling the others about
this comic, trying to figure out if it had any significance. "So
then the guy who had been fighting him, turned into a pig, you know
like he turns into a girl... and then his fiancee she adopted him
as a pet! Ranma ends up getting really mad at him later, see,
because he sleeps in her bed! But he can't tell her because he swore
he wouldn't tell anyone!"
Trinity remarked, "Wow, I didn't know a comic could be a
slapstick and a soap-opera at the same time."
"You say that the Oracle told you to stay in the waiting room
a while after leaving?" This was from Morpheus
"Yeah, and this was the first time that comic was there, it
has to mean something. Well, anyway, The next day, he tries to sneak
in her room to pour hot water on him, and..."
... Well, anyway, the next day he tries ...
(need to lowercase 'the' and it doesn't need a comma after 'day')
Tank had been monitoring the screens while listening to Neo.
His eyes became more and more glued onto the lines of haphazard
binary code on the screens as he listened to Neo's explanation,
<Pause for Geek-Notes>
Bzzzt! Try again. ;) Whatever it was -supposed- to be on Tank's
screens, it wasn't binary. Honestly, the text on those screens looked like
a weird mish-mash of Japanese text, ASCII characters, and line drawings from
a loony monkey.
But it wasn't binary. Binary would look like this:
1100101110001010010011100100100... and so on. ;)
</Pause for Geek-Notes>
until finally, he decided this had to mean something. "Hey, guys,
you'd better take a look at this!"
They rushed over and looked at the screens. Although the
screens only showed lines of code from the matrix, they were able to
read it, and what they saw was this:
I don't know... I think you could come up with a better way to put
this. Just stating that 'they were able to read it' doesn't do much for me
- after all, I can 'read' it myself... I just can't make heads or tails of
what it's supposed to say.
The way I looked at it, when I was thinking about The Matrix, was
this: those screens of scrolling gibberish are like those odd 3-D paintings
that everyone's seen. You glance at them, and it's like looking at the
remains of a particularly gunky bug on your windshield. But if you keep
looking, and you look in the _right_ way, you'll see a pretty nifty image,
although it'll never be as clear as you'd like. :)
That's how I, personally, imagine their displays work. But who
knows?
**---***--***---***--***---***--***---***--***---***--***---***---**
"Why... Why you!"
At this, a small black pig knocked the boy on the back of the
head, and he landed on top of the girl, who then woke up.
"Wait! It's not what you think... I can explain!"
Ignoring him, the girl then proceeded to beat the shit out of
him. He weakly attempted to explain himself even when it was clear
she wasn't listening.
"Wait!! Listen, Ryoga... he.."
"I don't see Ryoga, where do you see him?"
*CRASH*
<yawn>
Hmm? Oh, sorry, the fic was still going!
:)
Honestly, if you're going to gloss over a Ranmaverse event so you
can match it with something Neo read in the manga, then pick something a bit
more interesting than just another 'Akane smashes Ranma' section.
**---***--***---***--***---***--***---***--***---***--***---***---**
"What I saw before was even more consistent with what you were
saying... I think that's what the significance of that comic was."
"He's right. The Oracle wouldn't have sent me out into the
waiting room and told me to stay a while, and had those comics right
there, without a reason. This can't be a coincidence."
"Well, we can't really do much about it now," Morpheus yawned.
"Store the coordinates, we'll go in tomorrow."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Mode-Line for vi and derivative editors. Do not remove
for archiving.
Translation for other editors: use monospace font and set
first tab stop to
equivalent of six characters.
" ex:ts=6:tw=68
Not bad, not bad. But there's nothing here that's making me think,
'gee, I can't wait until the next chapter!' You need some sort of action
(and I'm not talking about Akane's Hammer o'Doom!)
Also, you need more in the way of descriptions. The dialogue is
nice, but it might as well be taking place on a sound stage, for all I know.
Having to pick up on locations from dialogue is fine, _if_ the dialogue has
enough in the way of visuals. This does not.
Grammar and spelling were good, although you do have a couple of
run-on sentences here and there. They're in the dialogue sections, and they
_do_ work, so I left them alone.
All in all, it's a good draft. But you do need to work on some
stuff, and make this more interesting. I wasn't 'hooked'. :)
Brian Payne
sofaspud@ior.com
brianp@nhspokane.com
It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your fanfics are?
http://www.ior.com/~sofaspud