Grayson Towler wrote:
Well, it's been a while since I've been able to even LOOK at fanfiction
(anybody else's or my own), so I'm catching up on my C&C. Better
late than never...
I sympathize. Thanks for taking the time out to do this.
"Don't underestimate me, 'General.' I may be one mere human
being, but I'm an elder Amazon warrior. And unlike your major, I know my
opponents. He might fail, but I won't."
Don't know if I remember you hinting that there's something
supernatural going on here before, but it's pretty clear now.
Makes it more intriguing.
Yeah, I think I've said so in an author note a while back... but as we all
(should) know, showing is more effective than telling. :)
back. He turned to face her, and her voice lowered, becoming the hiss of
a venomous snake. "It wasn't my decision. If it had been, I'd have
killed you. If I get a chance, I still will."
This is actually kind of foolish of Shampoo. Not a good thing to reveal
to your enemy that there's disagreement in your chain of command.
Maybe that will bounce back at her?
Unlikely in this case, considering what she did with this guy next.
"His hair. I smelled some kind of 'essence of flowers' stuff on
it. A guy wouldn't use that junk unless he was trying to impress a
babe."
Love that 411. Turns any date into a blind date! Forget your
worries!
"Shampoo no understand. Want blind date? Use Amazon eye gouge attack!"
Shouldn't he be spying? Or setting bombs or something? It seems
that Gos actually has the most useful skill in the entire bunch, for
what they're doing at the moment.
He does, yes, but nobody really knows that he has those skills. As far as Ranma
knows, he's the same old Gos who was fairly inept at being sneaky (as well as
everything else). None of the others are any better than that, true, but at
least the rest of them would stand a decent chance of surviving capture.
*Oh, good one, ya bonehead,* Ranma thought to himself. *You
spend half an hour coming up with that really cool speech, and never
once does it cross your mind that the guards aren't going to understand
Japanese.* Oh well, no big deal. He could still do what he'd come for.
He spent half an hour on that speech? Now we know why Ranma
is a martial artist, not a writer.
Yep. Though I've been known to write at about that speed too.... ^_^;;;;
This is somewhat comforting. Your handling of the "Guns vs.
Martial Arts" problem (which is something that generally turns
me off of a fic entirely, though this one is an exception) is a lot
more balanced than some people have portrayed. A lot of
writers have basically given it a no-contest approach - whoever
has the gun wins. Even in real life, this isn't the case. Check
out the history of the Boxer Rebellion if you want some historical
proof. In single combat or small melee, a good martial artist (or
a group of them) can expect to have a very good chance of
victory. When you get to larger military actions, the superiority
of firearms becomes evident, certainly. But in these close-
combat situations? Different story.
Especially with exaggerated skills like Ranma's. I have seen
a fair number or stories where some thug or mugger draws a gun
on Ranma and suddenly he's helpless as a lamb. Generally,
that's a cue for the delete key. Anyway, my compliments.
Thanks. This is a difficult call to make, because there's no direct evidence in
the manga and lots of conflicting indirect evidence. You can see Ranma bashed
against stone walls and walking away unscathed, but a falling coconut can knock
him out. My assumption -- in this story, at least -- is that a martial artist
can be hurt or killed by a bullet, but hitting him/her with one is easier said
than done.
The Mongol soldiers were running around like the proverbial
decapitated chicken, guns clutched securely in hand as voices blared
Should that be decapitated chickens?
Um... I suppose so, yeah.
better answer. This wasn't anything new for him, of course. Inadequacy
was practically his middle name. He was fully used to not having what
Pretty sure that there aren't middle names in Japanese culture. I
could be wrong, but I've never heard of it.
You're probably right. I'll try to say this another way.
"Oh, no," she said. "I know how not to be seen when I don't want
to be." Did she wink at him? Or was it just his imagination?
This leads to a strange question about whether she's learned
the same horniness-based technique. It seems so unlikely,
but you never know with these quiet types...
Heh. Actually, only the Happodaikarin is based on horniness in this continuity.
The How Not to be Seen is based on feelings of insignificance.
There's an old copy of a newspaper running around from a neighboring
village which claims he's a weakling, but perhaps they wouldn't
have seen that one.
Yeah, and there's an Amazon one that says that Ranma is Shamps' husband. But as
you say, these guys haven't seen them.
Of course he did, Shagdarsuren thought. It was the age-old
story. As long as they'd existed, the job of bureaucrats and politicians
had been to get in the way of people who were trying to get a job done.
If they had any sense, they'd simply decide what they wanted done and
then step aside. Let the military men -- the men who had spent their
lives in combat instead of pushing papers -- have free reign to decide
*how* to achieve their goals. They were the ones who were good at it.
Normally that argument is used when the "bureaucrats" are making
stupid decisions, not necessarily merciful ones. A good touch to
see that line of reasoning twisted around like this.
Well, one man's mercy can be another man's stupid, especially when the mercy is
actually done for practical reasons like not wanting to piss off a neutral third
party or whatever.
This is a tiny point, but you are describing things based on color
a lot right now, and Shampoo's color vision is going to be somewhat
different in her cat form. I know that cats aren't actually colorblind,
as is commonly assumed, but the bandwidth of visible spectrum they
can see is narrower than ours.
Good point; I didn't think about this.
Sorry I don't have a whole lot to add on this one, but the writing
is very polished and there aren't a lot of cracks. One of the issues
you're dealing with here is Ranma and company's willingness to
kill in this situation. There are some very interesting studies
about how people react in combat situations, and the depth of
our unwillingness to kill one another even in war. I can drone on
a bit more about those if you're interested, though you probably
have a good grasp on that already.
If you have something to say on this, I'd like to hear it, yeah.
Hope to see more of this when you have the chance...
We live to serve. :) I've already made substantial progress on the rest of this
chapter, and hope to have it sent to prereaders within a week.
As always, I very much appreciate the insightful commentary.
Gary