Subject: [FFML] Re: [C&C][fanfic][Ranma] The Things We Wish For... Chapter 4
From: "DB Sommer" <sommer@3rdm.net>
Date: 8/8/2002, 11:33 AM
To:
CC: <ffml@anifics.com>


Roehl wrote:



Ranma usually isn't my department.  But heck, everyone does it. :)
And I figured I should return the favor.

Cool. Thanks. Only got a response to the fourth chapter of my C+C on OH. Not
that you needed to respond to the others, just wanted to make sure you got
them.

felt more
comfortable staying in Kasumi's bedroom. Sleeping in the same
room with
someone who had a bad tendency to sell compromising pictures of
their sister
for pocket change was never a good idea.

She still loves her, nonetheless.

Yes. But she's not stupid either.


than even the usual visitor to the Tendou household, which was
doubly vexing
since her presence should have made everything better instead of
worse.

Well, it wouldn't be funny if she wasn't, wouldn't it? :)

Akane: I don't want funny in my life. I want normal.

^_^

so that was never a problem. Nabiki was second, with Akane third,
and the
men in some other order. Right about now Nabiki should be
finishing up and
Akane would have free reign for half an hour.

It seems that first Akane was pondering what to do with her
mother, and that plagues her first waking moments of the morning.
Now, all of a sudden, she forgot that there is one more to the
household than there should be.  Those sore muscles should be
kicking in, I suppose.

She's thinking of them as two different things not related to one another.
Of course, it's really to inform the reader of the problem that's about to
crop up.

as loose
as Akane's, Hippy." Kachiko used her own hips to push Nabiki to
the side
slightly.

She's turning out to be my kind of girl. :)

Now that is chilling.

until we can learn to live under the same roof." She turned to
Nabiki. "Why
don't you let Mom have the sink first, just like you would a
guest? Later on
we'll discuss who should get the bath second tomorrow and
everything will
run a lot more smoothly."

Curious, is Akane capable of diplomacy?

Hey, it's her resurrected mother. Cut the girl some slack. :)


the art of
brushing can achieve!" Kachiko loaded up the brushes with
toothpaste until

Yep, she's one of them!

Unneccesarily dramatic? Oh yes.


"All the more reason to go," Kachiko said icily. "Look, we'll
just say I'm
your cousin who's a transfer student. And for God's sake, don't
call me
'Mom.' I don't want people to think I'm some sort of weirdo."

It sounds like Kachiko has some sort of agenda.  Akane has to be
figuring that her mother's act is somewhat transparent.

Nah. Her mother is still 'above suspicion' at the moment, although that's
rapidly changing the more Akane gets to know her.


Kachiko said, "It's just I want my life to be restored to some
semblance of
normalcy."

OK, never mind.  But, still, she's being a bit too demanding of
everyone else, to the point where she can't get anything she wants.

Yep. One thing people seem to forget is that everyone's going to go out of
their way for her at first. Look at who she is. However, she is starting to
wear out her welcome, as with Nabiki. Although Soun's such a jellyfish and
he loved her enough to mourn her loss for ten years that he's not likely to
try to lay any smack down any time soon. On the other hand, he does smell
romance in the air, so his unwanted attentions are going to serve as Kachi
not getting her way in him not leaving her alone.


"We'll just say my transfer information must have gotten lost in
the mail.
Then we can slip in later and alter my old high school files and
make them
into new ones or something," Kachiko said as though breaking and
entering
and falsifying records was as natural as walking down the street.

OK, you know what?  You're probably just writing her as bordering
on treachery.  I shouldn't get in the way of that. :)

At times she has a bit of it, it's where Nabiki got her shifty streak.
Although Kachi needs to focus on something to employ it, usually. She also
has more blind spots than Nabby.


"You've got to draw the line somewhere, and terrifying demon
headed things
are over the line. So are tentacle demons." Kachiko shuddered.

I love references.

Thanks.



"Options open?" Kachiko said pensively. "Options open. Yes.
Options open."

Quite the treacherous little one!

Well, you had to see that coming. It would cause the most problems, and I've
been taking that path from the start. Once she showed an interest in Ranma
for more than a minute, and given the nature of the promise and that she was
a Tendou, it was something that had to be telegraphed.


sure, some guys try it, but all they manage to do is stumble over
themselves
and only get out 'You're cute' or something else that anyone can
say. But
you do it so well it's really sexy. And you're good-looking too.
Do you have
a girlfriend?"

...and she's got the attention span of a {insert short-lived
creature here}!

Nah. She's consistent in who she likes. At least on the surface, she thinks
Kunou's her type. Ditto with Ranma. Makes for more conflict.


other than idle curiosity, but it might have made Ranma a touch
more
irritable than he was this morning. That would be good. Part of
her plan
involved Ranma reacting in his typical unthinking manner.

What, no profit involved?

Emotional profit.


result of the time trip. No, far better to abandon the hopes and
plans of an
out of reach past and go on to forge a new future with the
material she had
been dealt.

We're, uh, getting to the point where Kachiko is too complete of a
character.

Ha! I had someone complain she has no depth to her. :)

Actually the above thoughts are to show how her mind works. It might help to
see how this hellcat could have gone on to become the girls' mother if her
mindset is such that she can abandon her past and try to deal with the
future as best as she can (as what would have happened after the accident).
Up to this point she's only shown some mannerisms that were consistant with
the girls' memories (lecturing and telling the girls 'enough' in the first
chapter) Also helps to show why she currently isn't heavily angsting about
losing her past. Like I said, angst is being kept to a minimum. So since the
above serves two purposes at once, it's definitely staying.

She knows what she wants, she'll do anything to get
it,

Actually that fits the definition of almost all of the R 1/2 characters,
when you think about it. :)

she's diplomatic when she needs to,

Really? I don't see her as being all that diplomatic. Her idea of diplomacy
was to shove her best friend to the ground to prove a point (which she
failed to do) and threaten to beat up Gos Sr. if he didn't quit playing hard
to get, among other examples.

treacherous when she wants
to,

Now this is true.

foolishly driven by passion and curiously philosophical.

At times. But they tend to be passing moments. usually she acts on impulse.

Kachiko is everything to everyone.

Well, I'd hardly say 'everything to everyone'. She's not what anyone in the
current time wants, except perhaps for Kunou.

 Add to that her being young, it
is not implausible just yet, but it's coming up on the horizon.

Kachiko merely lay there, concentrating on difficult things that
took a lot
of her remaining energy, like breathing. It was beginning to look
like being
run over by a car and settling down might not be such a bad thing
after all.

There is humility in her future, after all. :)

Heh


OK, this was rather enjoyable slapstick, as good as slapstick can
be translated into words.  Everyone is falling more or less into
place, except for Kachiko.  A lot to be said about an original
character surprising the reader, but be careful about not getting
into the habit of it.  Seeded into Kachiko's development there has
to be some predictability along the way.

Since it's been just around 200K, she shouldn't be that predicitble. Not if
this thing goes above a meg. like I think it might. HArd to tell now.

 Still, she is a rather
interesting one that keeps the story in form.

True, maintaining the balance between being surprised and being predicitble
is a fine line I'll be dancing along for a while here.


In any case, keep going.  This is getting good. ^_^

Thanks for the words of encouragement and the C+C. They are appreciated.

D.B. Sommer





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