My comments are in square [ ] brackets.
[ First off, I do not like "dark." I do not ordinarily read anything
"dark." Actually, I think "dark" is merely an euphemism for sick, but to
each his own. The only thing I hate worse than "dark" is something that
starts off as an attempt at humor that turns "dark" with ABSOLUTELY NO
WARNING WHATSOEVER! I for one, would ask that in the future you tag this
sort of thing correctly so that I may avoid it. However, you did manage
to get my attention so I may as well give you the full benefit of it.]
(Scene 1. It's a bright and sunny day, and in a tree-filled forest,
Nabiki
sits holding a football, yes a soccerball. Takewaki comes by.)
Nabiki: Saaay, Kuno-baby...wanna kick this football to the moon?
Kuno: The great Blue Thunder is not amused with such firvoloity.
[SP: Frivolity.]
Nabiki: You know, if you do this, I'll see about setting you up with
that
little red-headed girl there. (She points to a park bench where
Onna-Ranma
is sulking.)
Kuno: Alas, my pig-tailed goddess! Wait a minute...surely this is not a
trap set up by that evil Saotome?
Nabiki (chuckling): Hardly, he's not even here...he's sulking the fact
that Akane is marrying Ryouga.
[This sentence is in desperate need of rewording.]
Kuno: No doubt, another of your rouses, for alas I have never heard of a
Ryouga, and furthermore, the only thing that your fair sister has ever
showed interest is in me, the Blue Thunder, and that infernal piglet of
hers.
[SP: ruse] [OOC Kuno. Kuno does in fact know Ryoga. I cannot now recall
right off hand if he knows about Ryoga's curse, but he does know who
Ryoga is.]
Nabiki (muttering): Tell me about it...(to Kuno) So, Kuno-baby, how's
'bout the deal? You kick the ball, and you get your pig-tailed goddess.
Kuno: It seems fair enough. Very well, I shall attempt what you ask.
(Kuno gets far back. Nabiki holds down the football.)
Kuno: Football! Meet thy destiny! (He runs as fast as he can...but
Nabiki
pulls the ball away at the last second and Kuno kicks in the air! He's
flinged upward a ways before falling down on his back.) Aarrgh! (Ffump!
Nabiki giggles and smiles at him.)
Nabiki: Kuno-baby...you are so gullible, it's not even funny...let this
be
a lesson to you and you'll thank me for it far, far in the future.
(She walks off leaving Kuno to grown and just to stare up at the sky.)
[I can easily understand paying tribute to Charles Schulz.
Unfortunately, I cannot imagine Nabiki holding a football for anyone,
much less Kuno. I can easily imagine any number of the other characters
doing such a thing at Nabiki's behest, but not Nabiki herself. Having
anyone hold a football for Kuno is rather unsubtle at best. Onna-Ranma
holding a football for Ryoga might have worked better. ]
***********************************************
(Scene 2. It's the Tendou Living Room. All of the Ranma Cast is sitting
down at the table, and Akane comes out with the food...which I won't
describe except to say not even the French would give their cows what
Akane cooked. Everyone looks, well, at their food.)
[The entire cast? That is a large number of characters in one scene.
FWIW, cattle, even those owned by the French, are rather picky eaters.
Hogs would have been a better choice of livestock. While we are on the
subject of livestock, why not hogs owned by Arkansas hillbillies?]
Ranma (tossing his food aside): Aw, man...why did ya have to cook,
Akane?
Akane (immediately looking irate): WHAT?! You haven't even touched it?
(THe food eats its way through the bowls and through the table.)
Ranma: How can I? It's already boring a hole to China!
[Japan is in the same hemisphere as China. Check a globe if you do not
believe me. From Ranma's perspective the food would be boring a hole to
America.]
Shampoo: Now that, Shampoo impressed.
Akane: Ranma! You'd get down there and eat the food right now!
[This sentence is clumsy. I suggest rewording it. It does not sound very
much like Akane's usual dialogue.]
Ranma: Oh, sure...you uncute, sexless tomboy!
Akane (evil-eye stare): What. Did. You. Say?
[Why all the extra periods? Either use ellipsis or em-dashes, or
punctuate by the rules. You're other option is to go ahead, do an
authors job and describe the fashion in which Akane spoke. Offbeat
punctuation informs the reader of nothing. We have rules for grammar and
punctuation so that everyone can apprehend what it is you are attempting
to communicate. They are perfectly serviceable tools and you should at
least attempt to use them. After a few rounds on this forum you will
recieve enough instruction that such usage will become second nature to
you.]
Ranma: I said you're a (screaming) uncute, sexless tomboy who couldn't
cook anything! At least read the directions!
[This dialogue is not quite right for Ranma. It is close, but not quite
right. If you are going to use the rather clumsy, VIZ translations you
may as well go to the trouble of getting them right.]
Akane: Ranma.....
Ranma: I wouldn't marry ya if you were the last girl on Earth! (He
sticks
out his tongue.)
[OOC for Ranma. He never but never says the "M" word, even to use the
refusal of it as a threat--come to think of it, he doesn't even like to
mention the fact that he is engaged to anyone.]
Akane: Ranma no baka! (And with that, Akane pulls out her mallet, and
whaps Ranma. But, instead of pummeling Ranma down to the ground, Ranma's
head splatters all over the place, like in one of those Gallagher
routines. The headless Ranma flops around a bit beofre falling over
foreward into the hole. Everyone gasps.)
[I suppose there are a number of people who find this amusing. I am not
one of them. You have one of the main characters killing her love
interest. You did not warn me that this was going to be dark, or that it
was going to be an example of the so-called and much overrated, "black
comedy." I do NOT appreciate it one little bit.]
Genma: M-m-m-my son...
Ukyou: Oh, my goddess, you killed Ranma! You bastard! (Akane looks at
her
hands and mallet.)
[American television sucks. Animated programs running in primary time
slots on American television suck worse than the rest of it. That is why
I adopted Ranma1/2 and one or two other Anime series as an entertainment
refuge. Again, I do not find the mix amusing at all. To my way of
thinking, you merely insult the Japanese artists with American sickos by
doing this. Warn me next time with the appropriate tags and you will
not be reading this sort of commentary--at least not from me.]
Akane (getting down on her knee, whimpering): Oh, no... (Kasumi rushes
over to her side.)
Kasumi: Oh, my! Don't worry little sister...you didn't mean it.
[Almost in character for Kasumi, but not quite. Granted, Takahashi uses
characters with extreme personalities, but they do have limits. ]
(Akane looks at her blood-soaked hands, at her mallet.)
Akane: I feel...(she smiles)I feel great! Now I'll never have to worry
about marrying that pervert every again!
[Now we are so far out of character for Akane that not only does it
fail to amuse, it insults my intelligence. Granted, you are at liberty
to question my intelligence, but had you tagged this piece "dark," I
would not be bothering you about what I percieve to be a gross and
egregious error.
I do realize that Letterman gets away with snearing at his audience and
making them like it, but I suspect he spent a number of years working
at delivering mainstream comedy before he could get away with belittling
his audience. I recommend you study the more usual forms of comedy
before attempting to emulate Mr. Letterman. BTW: I must here admit to a
bit of bias. I cannot stand Mr. Letterman and only watch him when I am
at the home of friends.]
Ryouga: Yeeesss!!! (He pumps his fists.)
Kuno: At last, my prayers have thus been answered! My dear sweet Akane
has
defeated the curse that cur Saotome hath placed on her! Redemption!
[A joyful reaction from Moussel would be appropriate here as well. I
mention it because it is noticeable for its absence and is therefore out
of character for Mousse.]
(Ukyou, Shampoo, & Kodachi whap Ryouga, Mousse, and Takewaki
respectively.)
[You passed up an excellent opportunity to inject a considerable amount
of slapstick into this piece with this rather perfunctory description.
If you are going write, you may as well go ahead and write, dammit! You
otherwise bore the reader. I cannot imagine that even a fan of the
"dark-stuff" appreciates this kind of delivery. Also, this is way out of
character for the three of the four fiances. They would have been on
Akane like chicken on a junebug for killing Ranma, and unless Kuno and
Ryoga actively defended her, she would join her ancestors in something
like thirty seconds or less.]
Shampoo: Shampoo kill violent tomboy for killing airen!
Ukyou: Akane Tendou, you will *pay* for this killing! I will kill you in
memory of Ranchan!
[This dialogue is not anything like the norm for Ukyo.]
Kodachi: And I, the Black Rose, shall kill you and haunt you for the
rest
of your life!
[You didn't quite file all the serial numbers off this Aggie joke, but
it works--sort of.]
(Akane grins at the three girls.)
Akane: Fine. Go ahead, try to make my life miserable. You can't possibly
make it any worse than what Ranma's already done! (Suddenly an irate and
blubbering Soun grabs Akane.)
[Make her miserable? Come again! Make her miserable? Miserable nothin'!
The fight is already on, Bubbette!]
Soun: My daughter, do you realize what you've done?! You've ruined and
destroyed the chance to unite the Saotome & Tendou families! (He turns
his
head over to Genma and Nodoka.) Did it *ever* occur to you that you
would
be also ruining their only son?
(The two parents are weeping and crying.)
Nodoka: My son....my son killed like in some Gallagher act...
[Okay. Mentioning a hardworking comic like Gallagher does NOT improve
the humor in your story--be it black or straight. To make such a thing
work would take a few thousand words to do properly and you have made no
such effort.]
Genma: I...I...never got the chance to make Ranma a manly man...he will
always be a girly-boy...
[I've been wondering for a while now whatever became of Nodoka's katana
and how come it has yet to come ripping out of its scabbard. Worse, by
now every line of this thing needs to be a knee slapper or it fails to
amuse. The above line does not fall into that category.]
Akane: So? It's their fault they raised such an half-assed idiot like
Ranma!
(Soun tries to choke Akane, but Nabiki & Kasumi pulls their father away
from her.)
[OOC for Soun. OOC for Genma. OOC for Nodoka--unless Nodoka is peeved
with Ranma for allowing himself to be killed by a girl. Rather unmanly,
what?]
Nabiki: Dad, get a grip! He insulted her!
[Almost in character for Nabiki, but she would be exceedingly annoyed
over the loss of income she has always ripped out of Ranma's hide. The
author misses yet another excellent opportunity to add humor to his
story--albeit "black humor."]
Kasumi: And it wouldn't be very nice to murder your own daughter in cold
blood, now would it? Besides, the floors are messy enough as it is.
[Okay, this one works, in a nasty, dark kind of way. Yecch!
BTW: If you do not like the Ranma1/2 characters and storyline, why do
you write fanfiction for it? To annoy those of us that do like them? I
mean no offense. I am just curious is all.]
(Meanwhile, Shampoo, Ukyou, & Kodachi try to attack Akane, but are held
back now by Mousse, Ryouga & Takewaki, respectively. Mousse is somewhat
fighting Shampoo as he's trying to hold her back. Cologne leans over to
Mousse.)
[FWIW: No one ever "somewhat" fights Shampoo, unless they are Ranma and
she is trying to remove her clothing.]
Cologne: Hold her back, Mousse, it would not be wise to let my
great-granddaughter fight on emotions alone.
[OOC Cologne. In all probability she would have by now slain everyone in
the room but Shampoo.]
Mousse (grunting): Then help me, Elder Cologne! (Suddenly, Shampoo pulls
Mousse's arm across and her bonbori and his chain somehow find their way
through Cologne side and out the other side. The scene pands out and
freezes at that point. We focus on Akane first, smiling and examining
her
blood-stained hands as these words are scrolled out, read by a woman:)
[OOC Mousse. He is NEVER respectful of Cologne.] [The term should be
"pans" not "pands," unless of course you were trying to engineer a pun
on the word "panda." In which case I think "pandas out" would have
worked better--not much better, but better.]
Akane confessed to killing Ranma to the police, but was acquitted by a
jury of her peers after she successfully defended her claim of
self-defense because of Ranma's verbal attacks. Afterward, the jury
pummled and ass-whooped the prosecutor after he continually called Akane
an "uncute tomboy" and said the same thing about the jury after the
verdict was reached. Today, Akane is happily married to Ryouga Habiki,
and
they have two children, a pig. They work on a cooking show that is
hosted
by Akane.
[HOLD IT! If you are going to lambast feminist-extremism, please do
yourself a favor and do a proper job of it. This rather half-baked
attempt risks offending a great many irascible people without a laugh to
be found anywhere. There is no point in absorbing the punishment that
could easily come from such a limp-wristed, ineffectual effort. If you
are going to slap feminism, you are just as well off slapping the bitch
real hard, because they are almost always going to come around work you
over but good. Never, ever start half a fight. It will get your ass
whipped every time.]
(Now we switch to a frozen shot of Kasumi & Nabiki holding back their
father.)
[Where? What scene number? What happened to the format? This is very
confusing and if you really want to be read, it annoys the reader.
Annoyed readers tend to remember the names of annoying authors and avoid
what they write.]
Finally tiring of her father's whining and crying, Kasumi put arsenic in
his tea before his bed-time. She then rejected a proposal of marriage
from
Dr. Tofu because in her words, "It be too messy to be pampered the rest
of
my life, and besides, it wouldn't be nice." Dr. Tofu comitted suicide
afterwards. Currenly, Kasumi is married to Takewaki Kuno and along with
her sister, they run the Kuno Financial Consulting Firm. They also are
the
current owners of the Oakland Raiders Football Team.
[There is a lot of story here, but the delivery is so perfunctory it is
insulting. Why did you waste my mailbox space with this if you were not
going to make more of an effort? If you intend to deliver this in a
brief, narrative format, you need to at least try to use some wit. As
written, it sounds like something I would hear on Channel Four in
Nacogdoches, Texas back in 1967. Yecch! I do not care what the
struggling stand-up comics try to tell you, bad acting is in no way
entertaining. It is at best, sad. Writing this way falls into that same,
sad category.]
Nabiki Tendou ended up marrying Takewaki Kuno's servant Sasuke who has
the
services of Kodachi as a mistress. Sasuke helps run the financial
consulting firm and is a lawyer in his spare time. He would become later
famous in the Negaverse vs. Sailor Senshi lawsuit that resulted in the
Salior Senshis paying over a billions yen worth of damages done to the
Negaverse and the City of Tokyo.
[More perfunctory delivery. Comic timing therefore ruined. Therefore no
laughs and the reader is not entertained. A reader that is not
entertained, is an annoyed reader.]
(We switch to the Saotome parents, still in mourning.)
[Where? A change of scene is a change of scene! What happened to the
format?]
Genma & Nodoka Saotome eventually decided that Japan in general gave
them
too many bad memories, so they moved to Seattle, Washington where they
set
up a very successful babysitting service.
[Yet more narrative in a perfuctory manner without a trace of humor,
save the gag about the baby sitting service. However, it turned out that
the authorities got a bunch of that wrong, did it not? If you are going
to risk controversy, go whole hog. Half-steps will only get you into
trouble. It especially gets you into trouble with a reader like me, who
expects authors taking up space in his mailbox to at least try to write
a story.]
(Now, we switch to Ukyou. She's holding her spatula in defenisve
position.)
[Yet another change of scene with no formatting to tell us where, or
when, or any of the other stuff that does the job properly. This started
reading like a verbal pitch to a Hollywood producer several paragraphs
back and is rapidly getting worse. ]
With Ranma out of her life, Ukyou became the center of a huge fight
between Konastu & Tsubasa for her love. Konastu defeated Tsubasa and
eventually married Ukyou. Currently, they own a bed & breakfast inn in
London, England. Konastu also became the next Dame Edna for the BBC and
proved to be more hiliarous than the original.
[Mentioning Dame Edna does not make this funny. OOC for Konatsu/Tsubasa.
There could not possibly be a "huge" fight between the two of them,
provided that it was in fact a real fight. Konatsu would nail Tusbasa in
less than a second under such conditions. If you are going to entertain
anyone with this kind of plot device, you need to tell a story. There
ain't no story here, but it showed up in my mailbox. Why? You have
twenty or thirty pounds of story here if you would just write it!
Instead, you stuffed it into a two-pound bag and posted it.
Even if I liked the "dark-stuff," I would not appreciate this piece
showing up in my mailbox. Why? Because it reads as though you are bored
with the whole thing and do not really want to put out the effort to
entertain me. Writing, like it or no, is about entertaining people. If
you are not going to at least make an effort to tell a story, why post
the damned thing? Please also bear in mind that what a great many people
find entertaining, a great many other people are likely to find
offensive in the extreme, especially if it warrants a "lemon" or "dark,"
or "black-comedy," label. If you do not want to get ragged on for
writing such stuff, label it for what it is up front.
FWIW: Good guys killing bad guys in the proper context, is not dark.
Bad-guys killing good guys and getting off scot free is dark. Good guys
killing, maiming or otherwise injuring good-guys for no apparent reason
is dark. Distortions of the canon that result in main characters who are
not antagonists or who are one another's love interests, killing each
other is dark. Anything written with a negative sense of life, ergo is
all doom, gloom and angst, is dark. I do not like the stuff. It is, in
my not so humble opinion, bad art if it can be classified as art at all.
If I wanted that kind of thing, I would watch American television or
read Dostoevsky. In the future, please be good enough to tag this sort
of thing for what it is so that I do not get blind-sided by it again. ]