Meow-

In breaking with my usual, policy, I have read the C&C given by another,
namely Steven Avery, quite accidentally.  Therefore, while I do agree with
his assessment on the aspects of Belldandy's characterization and utility
in your fic, I will not comment on it since I can no longer be said to be
unbiased.

However, I haven't touched the rest, nor your responses.  So, please
forgive me if I've beaten a dead horse, as I would not know that an issue
with your fic has been already discussed.  I hope that in return, I do
come up with points that were not previously addressed.

(Wheee...more public C&C.  I'm on a roll, or something ^_^)

Day broke over the bowl shaped valley, and turned the morning fog to
gold.

Birds began their morning rituals of greeting the sun as the warmth
began dissipating the mists, revealing a landscape dotted with numerous
pools.

What a change from "It was a typical day in Nerima" ^_^

Even the small guide's hut had been empty.

This implies that the guide is small, when I believe you intended to say
that the hut is small.

heavily.  If only she had been male.  Maybe her aunt wouldn't have
resented her so much, maybe Cherry Blossom...

So, your main character has a Chinese name, and this person does not?  It
seems inconsistant.

She savagely cut off the thought as she started a new kata, leaping to
another pole, her hair streaming behind her as she flowed through the
air to land softly on a bamboo perch ten feet away, the sole of her
purple shoe

It's rather amusing to see that the first colour description you've given
is not of her hair, but of her shoe.

No, this isn't a critisism, merely an observation.  Actually, continually
reading about characters' hair colours is rather annoying, and this was an
interesting change.

The long ribbons trailing from her sword hilts danced around her like
living snakes, their coils never touching or getting in the way as her
swords flew through Hummingbird Kisses the Rose.

You've been reading Robert Jordan, haven't you? ^_^

Better the Oni you know.

There is no word pronounced "Oni" in Mandarin.  That is Japanese folklore.

The speaker was a chubby Chinese guide in the standard issue Communist
uniform, leading two Japanese tourists in gi.

The end is badly phrased.  One does not say "The two women were in shirt."
or somesuch.

...leading two Japanese tourists, each wearing a gi.

In shock, she raised one of her swords and looked in the long, narrow
mirror.  Her normally oval face was now more heart shaped, and her
normally jade green eyes were a luminous emerald with a more pronounced
tilt.  They dominated her face and the slit pupils recalled the eyes of
her guardian deity.  Ebon lashes swept out to frame those dragon eyes,
and spun gold, upswept eyebrows gave that face a nearly unearthly,
exotic beauty that her pointed, almost animalistic ears only accented.
The pointed upper and lower canines added to the wildness of her
appearance.  As she stood, she realized she had gained nearly a foot in
height and had filled out enormously.  Her expanded bust had ripped the
ties free on her dress, and the skirt had ridden up several inches.
Strangely, her shoes were only a little tight.

This somehow makes me suspect that you do plan to sprinkle fanservice
throught the fic.  Just a premonition.  I'll guess we'll see...

her crossed blades just touching Genma's Adams apple.

Should 'Adam's apple' that be capitalized in that fashion?

She smiled as she applied the finishing touches on her last dress and
put it away, returning her gaze to the ongoing brawl just as Ranma
landed in the pond next to the guide's hut yet again.

Rather quick alterations, that.

Zhu Shu looked into her teacup.  "It will not be easy for her, Revered
Elder.  Ranma has... much to learn.  I fear he will break her heart, and
she will have no defense against it.  They have no common bonds.  If she
tries to take him as an Amazon would, she will only drive him away.  He
cannot be conquered; he must choose to give himself.  And as yet, he has
no knowledge of the Way of Hearts or the Arts of Desire.  His pride and
hers will clash, and his inexperience will lead to many
misunderstandings."

And she's known Shampoo for how long?  Less than a day?  Give me a break;
trained psychologiests aren't that good.

 Alas, Shan Pu is not quite so fortunate.

Sure she is.  She's more fortunate that she doesn't have to worry about
it.  She isn't cursed until she gets back from Japan, remember?

With that as a base, maybe we can build a proper marriage.

Huh.  Wonder what Shampoo would have to say about that.  If she truely
understood what that entailed, she'd probably be having kittens.

Zhu Shu raised her eyebrow.  "Sister-wife?"

Cologne had mentioned the term before this.

<snip>
Heh.  Usually, I hear more about burning incense together and swearing to
be siblings, not blood ties.  I guess you could say that the Amazons are an
unrecognized Chinese Minority, though.

Ranma snagged the paw before Genma could pull it back.  "Picking my
fiancie for me,"

fiancee

While she had been safe enough from the one mugger she had met, she
spoke poor Japanese, and what little money she had had soon been gone.

Ending phrasing is awkward.

...and what little money she had brought with her had soon

disappeared/vanished/been unwisely invested in a Ferrari

At present she was setting in the rain on a low railing, overlooking one
of the city's drainage canals and feeling like she would never redeem
her Honor.

Why 'Honor' with a capital H?  I guess if that's the the facet of Amazon
society that is of extreme importance, then perhaps it's okay.
Otherwise, change it.

In retrospect, it had been anything but.

In retrospect, it had been anything but that.

"Why, hello there, little one."

I'll pass on the plot/character objections in this section, as per the
prelude to this C&C.

Shan Pu decided she believed her.  She was so kindly looking and exuded
an aura of such caring and peace that not trusting her seemed foolish.

Sadly, Shampoo had not learned that serial killers are often in the guise
of a caring and peaceful person, and ended her promising life as a side dish in
a Cantonese resturant.  The end. ^_^

 Skuld must have some clothes that will fit you after your bath

Hmm...haven't read the manga in awhile, but I do recall that Shampoo may
have different proportions than Skuld.

My sisters and I find out what our clients wishes are and aid the
ultimate force in accomplishing them."

Ultimate force should be capitalized, as it is a proper noun.

"But, we're famous!  We're in every paper in Japan!"  The red-bowed
blonde protested, "I've even got a Manga!"

Manga should be lower case.

"Zhu Shu not read Japanese.  Zhu Shu Mandarin."

An orange?  The majority of Chinese are Han Chinese.  The other 'common'
minorities were found in a <1 min search for a webpage.

http://www.orientaltravel.com.hk/people.htm

Zhu Shu recognized the scroll as part of a spell even though it was in
Japanese and her swords flared as she moved to stop the girl's casting.
As she stepped forward, ribbons ready to tangle Mars' hands, Mercury
cried out "Shabon Spray Freezing!"

Er...she's got two swords, and she's going to use the TASSELS to attack?
I am assuming you mean decorative tassels on the swords, because for the
life of me, I can't see how you'd stick two Kodachi-style gymnastics
ribbons on a sword and keep from tripping over it, AND use the thing to
fight effectively.  It doesn't even have the excuse of being silly like
other Ranma 1/2 martial arts.

The ribbons of Zhu Shu's swords streaked down towards Mercury and at
full extension launched a small ball of green fire at the blue clad
Sailor.

*sigh* You probably use these things in other flashy ways later.  I'll
comment here that finding out the master of a "secret and deadly" martial
art is really just doing a ribbon dance doesn't do much for me, expect you
to not change a thing since you've likely fixed that as a character
attribute in your mind, and drop the subject.

<snip>

The interspacing the "stock" Ranma scenes with the written SM scenes works
well in keeping the timeframe.  I can potentially see some others stating
that they should be reduced to a synopsis or so, but I think what you have
here is pretty solid.

Taking the girl's swords to her room with her, Rei sat and started to
polish the soot off of them, humming a song that was running in her
head, then softly singing the lyrics.

It never even occurred to her to wonder that they were all in Chinese.

And another Amei fan is born. :p

Zhu Shu blinked as her swords lowered, "Priestess!?!"

The chanting, the wardrobe, the fact that she lives in a shrine...how
could she have known that Rei was a priestess?  :p

Ami looked over at the priestess, "Sailor ...  Rei?!"

[Rei] "Arrrr!"
(Hmm...idea in a fanfic of my own.  *scribble)

<snip shopping>

At first, I thought the UY characters were merely a cameo.  However, you
keep referring to them.  If they're playing a role in this fic, it would be far
better to actually write out the scene where they meet.  Although it may
not be your main thrust, this business of "Oh, by the way, she has lightining
resistance."  "Oh, by the way, she slept in a flying saucer" is annoying.

Lots of dialouge skipping in this part.  You could stand to fill in a bit
more of a scene...

Ranma.  Akane.  Shan Pu.  Ukyo.  Kodachi.  Tatewaki.  Mu Tse.  Zhu Shu.
Ryouga. Nabiki.  Tao-Ching.  Nodoka.  Ke Lun...

How exactly are most of these people "involved"?  If you mean by
association

with someone directly, I believe that there is a statistical proof lying
around somewhere that says that half the world's population is connect to
any one person(although I will state that it's been awhile, and I could be
drastically misquoting).  So, considering the phrasing of the wish was so
open ended, I'm not really sure what your boundry conditions are.

Of course, I could also be thinking about this too much.

After all, she was a goddess of love, right?

Goddess of Love.  Proper pronouns have the property of capitalization.

I do not know of the Terrible Master incident (missing vols 10-14, and
over 22).

Was Demon 3rd Class a threat against Urd by God?  It doesn't seem to fit
in with his Kind And Loving image.

She walked up to Zhu Shu like a hungry cat

So she was perpetually "Aaaaoooooooowwwwwwww!!!!"-ing for food?  What
ungainly behaviour for a spiritual being. :p

Beyond a shell of defensiveness and that hair trigger, there was a sense
of potential.  She brought to mind the image of a young tiger cub, and
Zhu Shu could only imagine how beautiful she could be if she would let
herself be.

You know, I've read alot of fanfics with Ranma and Akane, good and bad,
but mostly bad.  Maybe it's just a reaction to this fact that I feel that
you've been quite obviously plugging Akane but...I feel that you've been
quite obviously plugging Akane. :p

Heck, everyone has their favorite characters and matchups, and I'm not
going to contest the validity of any of them.  The lack of character
building, or showing the events that would lead to their developing
relationship is something that I will protest, though.

Zhu Shu smiled.  She knew that look.  He might fight it, he might deny
it, he might even run away from it, and if she knew Ranma, he refused to
admit it even to himself ... but he was hooked.  Lost.  Head over heels.

Yep.  Figured.  Main source for dramatic tension just died.  This is just
the latest example of a trait about Zhu Shu that I will reserve to the end
of this C&C to discuss...

Rei was a priestess, and hopefully mature enough to recognize a minor
fascination as what it was.

This seems rushed, especially since it's been one day.  The conclusion at
the end of this scene doesn't help aleviate the rushed feeling, either.

Of course, if it really works like that, I'll have to arrange to get hit
by some cute girl's car sometime...

They'd been staring at her like she was a goddess, a dream made real...
She couldn't understand it.

I can't either.  But I guess that's part of the mystery. ^_^

Zhu Shu come to Japan help with Fiancie!

fiancee.  Note the lack of capitalization, which you should emulate
(unless Akane's changed her name to Fiancie unexpectedly.  While that
would make for an amusing fic in the tradition of "Who's on First?", I
would not suggest you actually do that)/

I thought it was were you were going!

Alas, although everyone else seems to be able to work miracles, such as
identifying deep psychologies in under a minutes, and getting wishes the
fast way, Ranma seems to be unable to compare in his own speed of learning
proper grammar. ^_^

"I thought it was you who was going!"

---

Although you've posted more by this point, I believe I will stop here, as
it grows late, and I do want to address some of the overarching parts of
the fic.  Spelling and grammar are easy enough to do with most
wordprocessors, and awkward sentances can usually be found by reading the
fic aloud.  The more interesting points to discuss (IMO) are the plot and
writing style, and I'd like to address those before you're drowned out in
specific sentance changes.

I have read up to part 3, and have taken those events into account below.

First off, between the Shopping scene and the initial Cologne/Unwashed
Village scene, you have a remarkable dearth of dialouge.  It almost seems
more like an extended synopsis of a fic at times, rather than a fic
itself.

However, let me then reverse myself and say that the amount of dialouge in
proportion to description throughout most of the fic (from what I've seen
at least, up to chapter 3) is fine.  It's just that one conspicuous
area...

My second point is the Japanese words sprinkled about.  I've heard the
arguments that it makes the fanfics seem "more realistic."  Even if I
believed that in most cases(which I do not), as Zhu Shu is supposed to be
Chinese, she surely would not be thinking in terms of 'kata' or 'hentai'.
Of course, if you do disagree with me and feel that you would like to
retain the "realistic feel", then let me point out that there are a number
of people on this list that know Chinese.  While I do not know the pingyin
phonetic romanization myself, there ARE plenty who do.

Note that I am not recommending you do this at all.  In fact, if you
rewrite Zhu Shu's dialouge in chapter 1 to be all in Pingyin, I would not
be too surprised if the same "realism" crowd threw rocks at you.
However, as the writer, it's your call.

Those issues are relatively minor, though.  I think there is one issue
more fundamental than all of those, and if you decide to address it, it
will surely be much time and effort.  I also suspect that you really care
about how well it's written, which is why I'm going to point this out to
you when I don't even bother with most people.

Okay, skimming through this chapter, I noted a few things about Zhu Shu's
character.

Fights as well as/better than Ranma.  Reads 'auras'.  "Advanced" chi
manipulation.  Cooks well.  Casts magic.  Psychiatric evaluation of
people's characters, after having met them for only half a day at the
most.  Penetrates disguises that last multiple seasons with no difficulty.

No fundamental character flaws.  Very intense descriptions concerning her,
with sparse/nonexistant descriptions for most other characters.  Has most
of the screen time.

Now, despite the fact that I dislike essays, and have publically mocked
them, I'm going to ask you to read this essay by Taleswapper. ^_^

http://members.aol.com/talswapr/anc.html

Normally, I wouldn't, but during a discussion on IRC a month ago with some
ffmlers, I found that people's definitions of ANC differed wildly, and I
want to establish some common ground.  I also believe that this essay is
where the term ANC was first used as such (but don't quote me on that), so
it may have some fanfic historical interest.

Certainly, Zhu Shu isn't the "exchange student" or "misplaced DBZ martial
artist" that Taleswapper, as well as many of us, despise.  However, the
reasons he states on why these characters are considered annoying
(Monopolize screen time, steal spotlight from real characters, discordant
storylines) are still reasons that many people also find annoying, whether
or not the fic in question is a type that Taleswapper specifically
discusses.

This was my basic breakdown of Zhu Shu's effect on the Ranma 1/2 Universe.

So, does Zhu Shu enhance the Ranma 1/2 universe(I'm excluding the other
series, since the amount of development up to where I've read so far is
minimal)?  Can't say that she does.  There's her backstory, which is
sparse by the end of chapter 3.  Besides that?  Precious little has shown
up so far.  The extended information in China was interesting, but that
was still mainly about her, and didn't reveal much about Shampoo or
Cologne that we didn't already know.

Does she add a new dimension to the character's lives?  Far from it.  So
far, we've had the two applicable plot complications to the Ranma 1/2
universe, and nullified them.  The Ranma and Akane romantic denials were
solved in a tripping scene, and to add insult to injury, we were told very
blatantly that Akane was such a nice match for Ranma, Ranma has fallen
head over heel for her, etc.  I'm also 95% sure that Shampoo will get
Ranma, because Belldandy Said So.  If course, the ambiguity of the wish
doesn't guarentee it, but Urd's musing of the file has settled most of my
doubt on the matter.  If anything, there's been a reduction in dimension.
The Kasumi and Rei situation may develop into something cute, but it
hasn't after 200K (by my email client's filesize measurements), and many
people won't wait that long before moving on to a new story.

Does she take the spotlight from the main characters?  Yes.  The
proportion of material you write about her, versus all the new material
concerning everyone else, and it's pretty obvious who's dominating the
screen time.  I didn't try this myself, but I'd be willing to bet that if
you counted all the lines where the name "Zhu Shu" appears, and the lines
where any other character's name appears, Zhu Shu would clearly have a
proportionally larger share.

My suggestions regarding this?


1) Drop the aura-reader act.  It seems to me (although I'm sure you didn't
intend it that way) to be a cheap trick to get around having the
characters express themselves.

For example, in the scene where they meet at the training grounds, have
Genma hurled towards a pool, change, then continue fighting Ranma. Zhu Shu
is clipped by the fighting panda as he jumps onto the new pole, since he
didn't notice her, and knocks her towards a pool.  Ranma, horrified,
instinctively leaps to knock the girl away...and is attacked by Genma,
still unaware of what has happened to him and only seeing an opening to
attack, thus knocking them both into pools.

You've still told the reader that Genma is careless, Ranma is noble,
risking himself for another person he hasn't met, and Zhu Shu has reason
enough to be angry at Genma (thus starting the marrage proposal process).
But now, you didn't have to tell us this information for us to understand
how the characters act; we saw it ourselves, and are more inclined to
believe it.  And even if we don't believe her assessment, we can still
judge the characters ourselves based on their actions.


2) Problem changing, not problem fixing.  As I stated above, by ep 3, you
managed to get rid of all the dramatic tension of the original series.
If you're determined to do that so quickly (two days!), fine.  But
introduce new problems immediately afterwords.  As the fic stands now,
everything seems calm, placid, peaceful...people who take a nap in the sun
in the park have those qualities too, and are no more interesting to
watch.

Perhaps Cherry Blossoms (you *really* need to change that name to
something in Mandarin, BTW) has a scene earlier, where she managed to
catch up to her lover only to find that she was following some boy around.
And she vows to eliminate him, so she also tracks him to Japan.  And when
Akane and Co. finally find that Zhu Shu doesn't love Ranma...CB rappels
through the window, trying to assassinate Ranma, screaming about how he
slept with her one true love Zhu Shu, and so on.  Now you have more angles
to play with.  Akane would LIKE to believe that Ranma's friend is only a
friend...but there's that little doubt.  Ranma believes his friend, of
course...but a little voice in the back of his mind wants to believe the
person trying to kill him.  Zhu Shu wants ALL of her friends alive.

Of course, my example may not be compatible with your plans(in fact, I
doubt it is), but then you need to find something that is.  It almost
doesn't matter what.  Foreshadowing would also help, too.  As it is, I
don't feel the tension that makes me want to rush forward, and read more.
After 200 K, that's a sign of trouble.

3) Character traits and flaws.  If I met Ranma on a street, and he wasn't
doing any martial arts techniques, I might be able to pick him out.  We
know he is arrogant and self-centered, but not in any cruel fashion,
speaks in a rough manner.  He's also hesitant when it comes to matters of
affection (probably because he gets smacked often), and will place his
hand behind his head when embarassed.  LOVES ice cream.  If I met a person
who exhibited these traits and flaws, I could say to a friend "Hey, that
person reminds me of Ranma", and he would have a good change to know what
I mean.  What sort of things could make me say "Hey, that girl reminds me
of Zhu Shu"?  I haven't seen that yet, and I'd like to.  Don't just tell
me phenominal cosmic powers and lesbian; that's the basic formula for alot
of fanboy-bait characters.  Give me a reason to feel like I know Zhu Shu.

I'll look forward to reading more of these once I've cleared out some more
of my backlog.  (And I thought I was below 500...*sigh*)

-Natsume Ranma Ranma
-------
The sardines weren't worth the trouble.  A few more shots, then
Ryoga-san would overheat and explode.  Ducking around a corner,
I managed to lose him as I entered the ramshackle residence of
my Anime supplier.

One look at his face and I knew that I had been betrayed.  "Tell me,"
I insisted.  He refused, so I slammed him against the wall.
"Last chance.  Where can Ranma-Ranma find good fanfics?"
"Try Jason Liao," he whispered, before he slumped to the floor.
I heard the sounds of a door splintering as I left through the
window, one step ahead of Tendo Heavy Industries...




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