I'm also going to step in here, on a few things...since I've been lazy.
First off, Herminone is muggle-born. Both of her parents are muggles,
although I can't remember if her grandparents (or further back) were witches
or wizards. Ron is pure-blood. Harry, as far as we know, is also pure-blood,
as both Mr. and Mrs. Potter were wizards. I think that in terms of the
books, this is how JKR works it:
Wizard + Witch = Pureblood
Wizard + Muggle = Half-blood
Witch + Muggle = Half-blood
Muggle + Muggle = Random
It doesn't matter, as far as I can tell, whether or not people marry in or
out, if two magic users make a baby magic user, they're pretty much
pureblood.
Next, 5000 yen isn't a lot of money at all. It's about US$46 dollars right
now. Japanese people don't really use credit cards. I was forced to use an
American Express Blue card the last time I was in Tokyo, and it shut the
store down as the employees all gathered around to look at the card and the
giant blue holographic square on the front. They can process the cards - but
still, it's much less common than it is here. My professor even told us
that, most likely, we would want to carry around upwards of 30000 yen (which
is currently US$277) on us at all times. Remember, in the US, you can charge
a $2 coffee from Starbucks, but in Japan, you may not be able to charge a
$200 blowfish dinner.
Now, on to some actual things with the fic: This is tough to read, too much
happens much too quickly, and it's very strange to read.
1) Happosai either should get gone and go or it has to make sense. Ranma is
good at what he does, Happosai, most of the time, is better. Cologne, most
of the time, is better. Cologne might state Amazon law and just give up, but
I almost would say that Happosai would not - and in essence, he's basically
giving up in this fic.
"Oh here," he says. "Here's everything you'll ever need to be amazing. Have
a nice life, I'm gonna keel over soon. Ciao!"
I don't really think that plays into the character at all, unless this is
pseudo-zombie-Happosai from the planet NiceNice. And that's a boring sort of
Happosai, I think. That's not to say that he can be nice, but this is wacky.
I think it would be much more interesting if Happosai found out what
happened later and then heads to find Ranma. After all, he uses magic too.
What's to say that he's not a wizard of some caliber.
If you look to an outside source, such as the Oriental Adventures books from
D&D, their Asian magic-users are much different than the Western European
style ones. It's perfectly likely that someone would be a expert martial
artist as well as a powerful magic user, especially given the ages of
Happosai and Cologne.
2) I think you should write out your numbers. I didn't here, but you should
probably write "five-thousand yen" rather than "5000 yen" and so forth.
3)Ranma is pretty impressive. I mean, he goes from something like his normal
speaking patterns at the beginning of the fic to Much Better Edu-ma-cated
Ranma towards the end of one chapter. I'm presuming this might be magic, but
it might just be a mistake.
At the beginning: "That ham hock on the hoof just destroyed them all."
Towards the end: "Of course. I should have figured. It's sort of obvious
looking at it now. Knowing so much about magic and stuff."
If anything, it should a little more rough at the beginning and then not
change at all (although his voice should be a little higher in the anime
version of the fic).
"That ham hock on the roof jus' destroyed 'em all!"
"'Course...I shoulda figured by now, sorta obvious I guess...you knowing so
much about magic and stuff."
4) Nabiki went from Ice Queen to Love-lorn Fantasy Princess very quickly, I
think.
5) I think the biggest thing that I find grating is that WAY TOO MUCH
HAPPENS in WAY TOO SHORT A TIME. It's very disconcerting.
-patchmonkey
.. Jerry Levine .................
.. jerry@jerrylevine.com ........ www.jerrylevine.com [work]
.. jlevine@terpalum.umd.edu ..... www.gaijeans.com [portfolio]
.. patchmonkey@patchmonkey.net .. www.patchmonkey.net [personal]
........The best way to predict the future is to invent it............
-----Original Message-----
From: Robyn, Duke of Amber [mailto:seraphim@sentex.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 3:02 PM
To: thermopyle@tds.net
Cc: ffml@anifics.com
Subject: [FFML] Re: that hp/ranma thing
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 thermopyle@tds.net wrote:
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 3:17:04 +0000
From: thermopyle@tds.net
To: ffml@anifics.com
Subject: [FFML] Re: that hp/ranma thing
Okay...I'm going to reply to the story and to a few different email
comments here, so I'll just start from the bottom of the thread.
To start with, directly from the fic:
"Akane held a hand out with a pair of 5000 yen notes,
frowning as she
reached for the tape."
I don't think it's likely that Akane would be carrying a hundred
dollars (greatly rounded) on her. MAYBE she'd have it
stored in her
room somewhere, but she wouldn't have it on her, especially
when she
wouldn't be carrying a purse at the time.
A quick note on this one....
My friend was in Japan 2 weeks ago and was blown away by the
stupidly large amounts of hard cash people seemed to be
carrying around.
the fact that a convienence store owner changed a 10000 yen
note (or something else stupidly large) without batting an eyebrow..
but credit cards are only infreqently used and INTRAC is
pretty much unknown.
Neil
_____________
Seraphim, the Restless Angel with a (borrowed) sword.
________
Nene, Ami,
Girls with glasses. girls with computers. Pink hair. blue hair
_______________________
Robyn, Duke of Amber. Agent of Chaos.
**************************************************************
*************
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