At 12:33 PM 1/7/00 -0700, andrew norris wrote:
From: "Miller, Bert" <bert.miller@unisys.com>
At last! I've been looking forward to this.
As have I; I'm very glad your muse has returned, it's been a *long*
time, with many cliff-hangers (e.g. the shocking ending of the last
chapter of the Ranma and Akane forced to stay close to each other
story). But good things are worth waiting for....
Ranko puffed up a few moments later, her steps
heavy and uneven. She bent over, chest heaving, and
fought briefly not to collapse to the road in sheer
relief. It would be way too undignified.
Nice way to give us a sense of what physical shape
Ranko is in.
As a side note, this shows she's actually in pretty good shape,
compared to a normal person.... It fits with her constrained
training detailed in the previous chapter.
*whack*
Ranma slumped unconscious as the panda, a feral,
hunted look on its face, scooped his son's limp,
female body up and sprinted for the freedom of the
garden.
And screeched to a halt at the sight of the bare
blade of Nodoka's katana hovering, steady, inches from
his furry throat.
Not sure where this comes from. In canon, Nodoka needs
a VERY good reason to do this. And, actually, isn't really
good enough with a katana to hold it steady 'inches' from
someone's throat. I suspect alterverse changes to be
explored later.
Well, lets see, this panda just whacked someone that looks like her child,
what would YOU do?
And is running away with her. Note for David: later on you have this:
Soun looked panicked, his eyes hunting for a
distraction. Then Ranma groaned on the floor and sat
up, rubbing her head. [...]
But there's nothing to indicate how she got there, unless we assume
Genma dropped she in panic, which ought to be detailed to further ...
outline ... his character.
Just then the middle daughter, Nabiki, came into
the room and knelt between her two sisters. Nodoka
was interested to note that Nabiki now wore a kimono.
Did you give us a reason for this? I didn't notice one.
Nabiki's a person of appearances... and Nodoka will react better to someone
in a kimono, or a "formal" outfit. Smart David.
Even better, although maybe I've watched too many Samurai dramas, I can
think of no other type of clothing on Earth that is more suited to
dramatically drawing paper out of.
A few other comments from sections not touched on in this thread:
[ in the dojo ]
"Yeah, morning, Ranma," said Ranko. "How come
you're in your--"
Suddenly, Ranma was by Ranko's side with her hand
clamped over her sister's mouth.
While Ranma has not (yet) mastered "god speed", I'm sure he could close
the distance to his sister *very* quickly, and she might note that.
Ranma and Ranko looked at Akane with identical
expressions of surprised enquiry. "What's that?"
"Ngwah?"
Are you sure Ranma would be more articulate than Ranko? ^_^
In her room, Nodoka sneezed. Sitting in bed, she
had been looking up at her naked katana embedded in
one of the room's wooden beams, wondering how it had
got there during the night.
Nodoka the serious swordswoman, good enough to draw and hold a katana
a few inches from her target in a split-second or so (she would need
superhuman reaction time to do this, but this is a Ranmaverse after all),
does not agree with a Nodoka who would wake up and look at this situation
so casually.... Perhaps I'm projecting, but if you're serious about
lethal weapons you tend to be serious about safety, and while
"sleepwalking" is understandable, I'd expect her to be quite distressed
afterwards.
Nausea failed to awake in her belly, and her head
remained clear.
I don't know if this warrants revising the above sentence, but the
first time I read it I substituted Nodoka (which also starts the
previous paragraph) for Nausea, and was quite confused.
As a side note, "your son turning into a girl" is so far out of left
field in the "is your son manly?" dimension that Nodoka could easily
defer dealing with the latter for a while.
Anyway, these quibbles aside, this is an *excellent* and well written
installment of this intriguing story. I wish the best of health to
your muse. ^_^
- Harold