"Miller, Bert" <bert.miller@unisys.com> wrote:
Nice story. Very well told.
Thanks. ^_^
Like Krista, I have *S P O I L E R S* for the story below
The clinic is a maze of corridors and examination rooms with
tables of cold stainless steel. Racks of medicine and equipment
hang on the walls, like the torture implements of a medieval dungeon.
A bit overkill with the sterile imagery here, perhaps.
Yeah, you're probably right.
"Well, Mrs.--"
"Akane."
Heh. Go ahead, LEAVE the reader in suspense as to just who Akane
married...
Heh heh heh.
Problem, sort of: "throttled the doctor demanding a dialysis machine"?
This doesn't happen, later. In fact, there's no time for it to happen.
"My husband" reads the letter at home and departs from there.
You're right; continuity error big-time here.
And why _wouldn't_ it work? You've got me curious, but never explain
it.
Did you ever see a pig hooked up to a dialysis machine? :)
as handsome!" He knew full well what the name of Kodachi's new love
interest was, but refused to admit it to himself.
Hmmm... Gosunkugi, perhaps? Your last sentence suggests to me that
you had someone specific in mind. And it would be like Ranma to
object more than Alan had him doing in "Turning the Wheel".
No, no one specific in mind, except that it was someone new. I certainly
have a hard time imagining her becoming interested in Gos.
"This is not good," Ranma said. "We better go ask the ghoul
about this."
That was quick of Ranma. A tad OOC, perhaps, but then, your plot
really requires somebody to move on this. Might work better
to switch it around? Ranma shrugs it off, Akane is alarmed?
I'll think about it. You're right, I am deliberately moving things
along. Such is life in a 60-kb short. :)
"So that's the story," Ranma said. "Any idea what the deal is?"
<clip>
"Pack your belongings. We're leaving tomorrow morning."
Also a tad quick. Cologne can't think of any alternate possibility?
No tests? Granted, you don't want to spend a lot of time on this,
but it wouldn't take many words to have Cologne run a quick check
(trying cold, then boiling, herself? Takahashi might have Cologne
do that.)
You have a point here. I'll think about this.
"Correct, child. It happens with some curse victims; with
others, it never does. Ethnicity seems to be a factor. It
seems to be a near certainty for Europeans,
What? You mean Jusenkyou-cursed American S.I.'s will find the
curse PERMANENT? (Heh.)
Ahhh, like they'd mind. :P
"No trick. Very soon, even boiling water will change you into a
woman, Ranma; and no sort of water will change you back."
Awkward: had to read this sentence a couple of times. I keep
expecting a missing "not" before the even. Exchange the clauses,
maybe? (I unconsciously expect the "cure" clause first.)
Will think about it.
"A very special underground spring is rumored to exist
somewhere. The name I've heard for it is zuihouniquan. According to
legends, it's capable of changing any creature into a human, and
removing any other curses regardless of which stages they're in."
Partial nit: okay, here's _one_ possible cure; but what about
others? What about the original Nannichuan? Perhaps a sentence
explaining that it was destroyed for good at the end of Vol 38?
Then there's still the possibility of additional Japanese
nannichuans, wish-granting swords, etc., etc. As Krista said,
this is the Ranmaverse. A possible cure is ALWAYS around
somewhere. The nit at the moment is in Cologne's defeatist
attitude.
The assumption is that "normal" nanniquan wouldn't work on Ranma
anymore. I'll rewrite to make this clearer. As for other magic items,
anything is possible, but few things are likely; we all know how many
times Ranma tried and failed to cure his normal curse.
An hour later, we had dragged several large cardboard boxes full
of books and scrolls from Happosai's room into mine. We sat on the
floor, searching for anything related to what Cologne had
talked about.
EXCELLENT start! Why don't any other permanently-cursed Ranmas
do this? (Well, to be fair, we're often just told, not shown, about
this stage.)
Good question. :)
I continued reading. *...there is no known way to remove the
curse. For this reason, Jusenkyo should be avoided at all costs.*
Odd narrative here. What does the '*' signify? At first I didn't
even notice it, and thought you were making some point about Ranma
not being able to read (so Akane was reading to him). I guess you
mean Akane is reading silently, while Ranma does the same. You
might want to think about this, but I have no suggestions.
Maybe I'll change it so she reads it aloud.
From above a sharp bang sounded, like the bursting of an
over-full balloon. The room went black.
Frankly, "Akane facefaulted" just works better for me.
I have to disagree with you on this. I'd rather stay away from the
"stock" descriptions wherever possible.
Not sure how I feel about this. Seems like it should be matched
with Akane regretting, later, that she didn't do it anyway, if it
was her last chance to get pregnant. Does her fertility cross
her mind this night, one way or the other? Maybe it should.
Or maybe she _should_ go to Ranma, only to find him asleep. Or
awake, but they _don't_ do anything.
Anyway, Akane seems slightly OOC to me here. She doesn't often
believe the worst about Ranma _ahead_ of time; usually it's just
after he opens his mouth.
The scene isn't bad as written, but I can't help thinking that
a different scene in its place might not be a lot more compelling.
I'll consider changing it. I did think about adding some thoughts
regarding possible pregnancy, but for whatever reason it didn't get
included.
to buy weights. It wasn't very far away; just a couple of blocks past
Furinkan. Ranma could take Ushiro street and be back in under a half
hour.
The street on which the ladle lady lies in wait is _past_ Furinkan?
Then why does Ranma keep walking past her?
No, she's on the way to Furinkan. So Ranma passes her before passing
Furinkan.
she told him. Well then, he said, it needed to be more boiling.
Heh. But isn't this actually possible? You can have sub-freezing
water under special conditions; I'd have thought you could keep
water fluid above boiling by applying pressure or something.
(Not that this is what Ranma is thinking of.)
Yes, but Ranma doesn't know this. He should've paid attention during
physics class. :)
"Oh yeah, suuuure you don't. Forget it, Akane. Normal girls just
don't marry other girls. We can do it i-- when I get cured so
I can turn back into a guy again.
A tad OOC for Ranma to slip on "if" even this much, this early in
the game. Granted, you don't want to insert a six-week pause here.
Yeah, I am cutting a few corners, but this is only meant to be a
shortfic.
"Oh? Is this the 'let's all be friends' speech? Ran-chan's made
his choice, and the rest of us should just smile and say 'oh well, the
better girl won?' Sorry, honey, but that's not me."
This Akane-Ukyou relationship isn't what it was at the close of the
manga, and you provide no clue to how it got to this point. Not sure
why; the hostile Ukyou doesn't seem to be important to the plot. Just
being anti-"Saint Ukyou"?
You're right, I goofed. The point was supposed to be that Ukyo learned
of Ranma and Akane's pending marriage. But I never explained (or even
decided) how she did so.
I stood back to take in the whole picture. It was a man who
stood in front of me; slimmer and shorter than the old Ranma,
but anyone looking would definitely know that he was a man.
I have a hard time picturing this. Female Ranma has the most
pronounced measurements of any woman in the series, for her
height. What about the lack of Adam's apple? The eyelashes?
This is the Ranmaverse, where people generally aren't perceptive enough
to spot these things. Otherwise Ukyo, Tsubasa, and Konatsu could never
have kept their genders secret as long as they did.
And the bindings wouldn't fool people indefinitely, any more
than they had when Ukyo wore them.
They didn't? When would Furinkan have learned, then, if
Genma hadn't blabbed or Ranma grabbed?
Who knows? But eventually something would've gone wrong. That's all
she's saying.
The ceremony went off without a hitch; after everything we'd
been through, it was quite anticlimactic.
What, no kidnappings of Akane?
This isn't movie continuity. :)
After the wedding, Nabiki went off to begin university studies
in Osaka.
Trying to get away? Seems a bit off, somehow: aren't most of
the top business-directed Universities in Tokyo? (The ones
Nabiki'd respect, anyhow?)
Would you want to stay in town with that family? :)
Especially for me. My every instinct told me that this was
wrong, that I should be disgusted at the thought of touching another
woman in that way.
Now, what's _this_ about? Author pre-empting protests? Though
perhaps defensible, this is hardly mandated by canon, and not required
by your plot. I think I'd like it better if, like the way you
seemed to handle it above, sex were a non-issue.
And, while I've not done any surveys personally, I'm not sure I buy
"disgust" for non-Western women. (In many non-Western cultures,
not even men would experience the same "disgust" characteristic of
American men in this situation.) "Lack of interest", perhaps.
Or (the way I handled it myself) Akane might experience warm
fuzzies but not the intense thrill she'd feel the other way.
Well, I admit I'm shooting in the dark here. Not being a Japanese woman,
I can only guess at how one would react to the idea of sexual contact
with another woman, and there's no evidence regarding Akane in
particular in the manga. I guess I chose what I did as a backlash to the
"all woman are secretly lesbians" crowd. :)
Having inherited the family dojo, Ranma and I looked over the
family finances and found that they were an absolute mess. There were
debts that should have been paid and tax returns that should have been
filed ten years ago, and bonds that should have been cashed in. There
were shoeboxes full of savings account statements that hadn't been
opened. We spent a lot of time organizing it all, figuring out what
needed to be paid and where we could squeeze the money from.
Geez: pricking the "Nabiki runs the household finances efficiently
balloon" also, in the same story. This doesn't even sound like
the way Kasumi (the most probable candidate) would handle it, though.
The assumption here is that Soun's been handling it. (Or rather, not
handling it.)
And with every disappointment, every dried-up lead, Ranma
seemed to lose a bit more of his spirit. More and more, he would go
through the motions of a day's work with less and less real
enthusiasm for anything he was doing.
The TOP/Iris syndrome setting in... Again, it's almost like
you're pre-empting reader protests rather than thinking it through
yourself, from scratch. Kept busy, mightn't Ranma start to not
notice his gender, over time, instead?
Well, not if what he's busy with is looking for a cure. :)
But then, your plot requires that Ranma NOT be resigned...
television speaker; some observer from the UN claimed that seismic
reports indicated that the Japanese government was carrying
out illegal nuclear tests. Just another day.
What was _this_ about?
Here's a clue:
"Damn it! I don't want you feeling sorry for me. I've done that enough
for myself. I'm empty. There isn't anything left anymore."
I wondered what kind of meeting she was talking about. Kasumi
always went out on Thursday nights, and never told anyone
where she was.
Hmmm... last time I read this line, it was weekly dinners with Tofu-
sensei. Deliberate echo?
Yup. Every now and then I do a callback to a previous fic, just to see
who's paying attention. :)
"No, no, it's all right," I said. "I'm sure Ranma would be happy
to show you a few moves, wouldn't you, dear?"
I was half-expecting some shirt- and bandage- opening disaster
here. If you don't want the suspense, you might consider an
earlier comment that the bandage holds up to a lot of stress.
Will consider.
"Kasumi..." A smile crept onto Ranma's face. "Thanks."
With eyes wide, she looked back at him. "Oh my. For what?"
No sly smile? A real coincidence? Well, _that_ would be
Takahashi-like.
Maybe. I'm not tellin'. :)
"Look, I'm not having her throwing away her whole life because
of me. She deserves better than that. Just tell her that I had to go
away. Tell her that nothing is her fault, that she's a
wonderful person
and all that but I just can't marry her or even see her anymore. It's
just how things are, and there's nothing either of us can do about it,
and she shouldn't wait for me because I'm not coming back."
This is really horrible of Ryouga to handle Akari this way (assuming
their relationship has in fact advanced beyond that at the end of
the manga). There's irony in that, if Ryouga saw Ranma treating
Akane like this, he'd be justly furious. In fact, I'm not sure
Ranma's being furious enough, if his voice can't be heard.
Well, it's arguable what the best thing is for her. Should she really be
told if it would mean pining away for a man who'd never be a man again?
I dunno. I just write this stuff. :)
other guy for her. Someone who can beat that pig of hers so that her
father will approve."
Nit: isn't it "grandfather"?
Um. Oh yeah.
The whole thing seemed ludicrous. What on Earth was Ranma
thinking? But the look in his eyes said that this was the
most important thing in the whole world. I didn't understand it,
but I had to trust him.
It's almost sad that it doesn't occur to Ranma here to wonder
how his father's doing...
He probably did; I just neglected to mention it.
Again, Ranma's efforts are effective. However, I had to
read the ending three times to figure out that Akane STILL
hasn't realized the truth: that she thinks Ranma was trying
to make a real pig human to extend its life. No wonder she's
still puzzled.
If you don't want the ambiguity (I don't think I would), you
might put in a reminder that this water turns _anything_
into a man; it's not just a Jusenkyo cure.
OK, that's a good suggestion.
As always, I very much appreciate the commentary.
Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html