I'm a bit confused as to why Brian always flags "Missing speech 
indicator" as an error.

Traditionally, if a paragraph has both dialogue and action, and the 
dialogue is not overtly assigned to anyone, the speaker of the dialogue 
MUST then be the agent of the action. Thus it's not an error not to have 
a "she said." What would be an error on the part of the writer is for 
the agent of the action not to be the speaker of the dialogue (see 
example further on down below). In that case it's not really that 
there's no tag that's the error, but it's that the action belonging to 
someone else should be in its own paragraph and isn't.

	"Oh, hello Skuld! What a pleasant surprise!" Belldandy stood
aside, waving her sister inside.

There's no error because the speaker of the dialogue cannot possibly be 
anyone other than Belldandy. If it's intended to be someone else who 
spoke, though, then it's an error.

	"I must stop it before it's too late." Setsuna looked at her
watch to find that the other senshi would not be arriving for at least
another hour. Walking with a grace which made the small, routine action
seem beautiful, she made her way into the ice cream shop behind her.
Moving to an unoccupied booth, she sat down and prepared to wait.

Setsuna is the only person the dialogue could textually belong to. If 
it's someone else, that's an error, but there is enough textual evidence 
that Setsuna's the speaker to obviate the need for a tag.

	"Maybe she's not here yet." Makoto spared the ice cream parlor
a cursory glance, not really expecting to find the green haired senshi
of Pluto.

Same. How could this line possibly belong to anyone else?

	"They're skills and strength are amazing." Rei watched slack-
jawed at both combatants as they fought to gain the advantage over the
other. The fight was close, but she thought the cute guy in the red
chinese shirt was slowly overpowering the guy with the bandanna.

It's obvious Rei is the speaker.

	"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!" Ryoga tried to block as many of
Ranma's punches as he could, but a lot of them still got through.
Dazed from the attack, he never saw the flying kick Ranma launched at
him. He paid dearly for his mistake, flying ten feet through the air
and landing roughly on the street below.

HERE's your error. Ryoga did not shout "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken." 
Textual evidence says he did. Something is wrong. The dialogue should be 
in a separate paragraph, and would be useful to tag, except that it's 
obvious to familiar readers who says it.

	"Are you sure? You might have a concussion, or internal damage,
or..." Ranma cut off the short haired girl's comment.

	The last line of this paragraph should be moved to the next, and if
she's being cut off (not trailing off) you should probably replace
the '...' with '--'.

Exactly, because otherwise textual evidence suggests Ranma is the one 
saying "Are you sure?"

	"He's such a hunk." Minako sighed as she remembered how he
looked when he smiled.

	"Yeah, he's so cool." Makoto remembered the ki blast he used
in the fight. Whoever he was, he was strong.

Again, fine.

	"I'm confused over the readings I got from him. They indicate
that-"

	"That's enough of that. Follow me back to the ice cream parlor.
We need to talk about that boy."

The first one is pretty clear from pragmatic evidence. The second one is 
less clear, and should probably be tagged.

	That.... Didn't she pine over him for two years or so in the anime?
And she just throws that away after a glance at Ranma? And why would
Usagi step on Ryouga's face?

	These girls don't really have much of a reason to pass that kind of
judgment on people they don't know, and it seems a triffle odd,
really. If anything, a reason should be provided for why Makoto
panicks to run to Ryouga's side and then just _drops_ him like that,
though I'm at a loss to what that reason could be.... Maybe Makoto
thinks he abandoned her, because he happened to get lost, or the like.

I've got to agree with what Brian is saying. ^_^ That you escape the 
cliche and then pick it right back up on purpose is one thing. That the 
senshi are being pretty heartless is another.

	"If you are all finished with your daydreaming, I would like
to remind everyone that we are here for a reason. That reason will be
revealed as soon as we get to the parlor." Setsuna frowned when none
of the girls moved.

	"It's about that boy you just saw."

	If that's being said by Setsuna, it should probably be added to the
previous paragraph.

I can see you want a paragraph break in there to indicate some sort of 
pause, but I think you've got it in the wrong place. I'd suggest 
something like this:

	"If you are all finished with your daydreaming, I would like
to remind everyone that we are here for a reason. That reason will be
revealed as soon as we get to the parlor."

None of the girls moved. Setsuna frowned. "It's about that boy you just 
saw."

	All the inner senshi disappeared and Setsuna felt a gust of
wind blow by her at the mention of Ranma's name. Shaking her head in
disgust, she calmly walked towards the ice cream parlor, stepping on
Ryoga in the process.

	'disgust' and 'calm' don't go together well (perhaps 'disdain'
instead of 'disgust'. And why is she stepping on Ryouga, too?
Admittedly, she's a harder character to peg, and she might have had
some kind of history with Ryouga (somehow), but that seems
unnecesarily cavalier towards the entire affair.

I think the author is simply going for some visual humor here, but I 
don't think it's very successful. Stepping on people can work and often 
does work in Ranma fiction, but usually only if it's remarked upon by 
one of the characters, not just by the narrator. In this case Ryoga 
remains unconscious and the senshi remain oblivious, so no one notices 
that Ryoga's being trampled. It ends up being much more painful than 
funny.

Peter


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