At 13:29 2000.09.15, Mad Hamlet wrote:

A memory clicked, the voice sounded just like..."Pop's." Ranma whispered to

'Pops'

< Tomorrow, > Ranma seethed. < I pound that panda extra hard simply on

comma after 'seethed'

        "Uh...yeah, I'm fine." Ranma said, "I just got lost in thought that's all."
Akane had a humorous impulse, < For you Ranma that must be harder then it

"Akane had a humorous impulse. < For you Ranma that must be harder thanit..."
                           ^^^^                                   ^^^^^

looks. > And her hands started to make the gestures that would spell outher
thoughts and then she remembered that Ranma wouldn't understand and letthem

that last 'them' is somewhat unclear as to what it's referring to, her hands or the gestures...

Slowly, with increasing ferocity, yet still exhibiting iron control, his
movements grew in complexity while going faster, ever faster.

nice imagery on the going faster...

Chest punch, follow through backhand punch...overhand smash to the head,

nitpick time :)
you've got good martial imagery going, but the pace is broken with the 'smash'... use something that sounds more technical as opposed to bar-brawlly... 'hammer fist' would work (and i think that's what you're going for) and so would 'back knuckle' or 'chop'...

Akane shook her head in amazement, the moves themselves were still easily

"...amazement. The..."

within her capabilities but the flow, from one, to the other, to the next

"...from one to the other to the next..." uses the sentence structure to help illustrate the flow you're talking about....

seamless and endless. Water flowing down an icy mountainside had less grace

"Seamless and endless." could be a sentence by itself here...

then what she beheld before her.

then -> than

of pure power, arched his back, completing a flip. The forces tore thedummy

only one force involved here.... Ranma :)

        "Yeah Shiro," Ranma continued, "I'm pretty sure I never met Jackie Chan." He
knew his next words were going to get him into trouble but couldn't see away
around it. "So I guess you like Jackie Chan huh?"
        Akane boggled. < Oh boy! Is Ranma in for it now. > She thought. Even Taka
winced.
        "Oh do I ever like Jackie Chan!" Shiro launched himself into a monologue,
"He's the best! He's an awesome martial artist and he makes the bestmovies.
Did you know he does all his own stunts? He's over forty years old and hedoes
all his own stunts, isn't that the neatest thing? I think so. I think its
incredible, forty years old and doing his own stunts. Wow. He's a reallynice
guy too. I love his movies. My favorite part is the ending credits though,
when you get to see the bloopers. The bloopers are my favorite part, except
when he gets hurt. I don't like those bloopers. The funny ones are good
though. I like the funny bloopers; but not the ones where he gets hurt,just
the funny bloopers, not where he gets hurt. No, no, no."
Each 'no' was punctuated with Shiro shaking his head.

this is just priceless imagery.... did you base Shiro's characterisation from the abominable snowman from bugs bunny? that's kind of the flavor i'm getting for the speech pattern.... but the imagery here is just fantastic...

        Then Shiro moved. He finger's, held straight and stiff, lashed out at an

"His fingers..."

              Taka was still looking calm throughout Ranma's tirade; Shiro
looked confused and Akane was having a hard time not laughing.
        < Poor Ranma. > She thought, < This is going to drive him crazy. >
        Taka cleared his throat, "Perhaps I could explain. Remember how I mentioned
that Shiro had one other little talent? This is it. He mimics martial arts.He
can't learn new styles like you but if he sees you perform a maneuver thenhe

"... like you, but..."

will remember how to do it. However he can only do that maneuver, he can'tadd
to it, or improvise. He doesn't know martial arts he mimics martial arts.When

"...know martial arts, he mimics..."

        With hurried steps he headed inside, with Akane following, the two both made

"... following. The two ..."

Authors Notes: Well THAT'S finally done. Hopefully COS1.4 will have afaster
release time. After that will come COS2.0 and 2.1 etc etc..
        Ok let me just get this off my chest. I based Shiro on a REAL person. No I'm
not kidding. In my youth..ok..EARLIER youth, I worked a great deal with the
handicapped. One person I met was a lot like Shiro. A berserk pituitarygland

ah... ignore my earlier comment about the snowman....

AAANNNYYWWAAAYYY... My own feelings on Shiro are a tad iffy. Like I couldhave
done something better. One of the reasons this took so long was I sataround
for hours trying to wonder what that thing WAS!! I couldn't find it. Ifanyone
has suggestions I'm listening. Hell I'll rewrite the whole latter half ofthis
part if I get a good enough idea.

eh... what you have seems to work nicely... he seems to fit quite well into ranma's world the way he is... physically powerful and capable with a loveable side... every character in ranma's world is like that... if a shrink opened up an office, he could make a mint off the guy with the depression, and the girl who's detached from reality, and the girl with the wild anger, and the psychotic girl with the flower fetish, and her brother with the delusions, not to mention all the people with confused sexual identities.... all in all, i think he fits rather well and is reasonably balanced... maybe the wrongness you feel is because you modeled him on a real person, and he turned out a bit different...


anyway, same comments as in the earlier part, so i won't repeat them here... i'm looking forward to ranma trying to learn to sign... :)



-Z

We are Dyslexic of Borg. Your ass will be laminated.