Gary Kleppe wrote:

Once again, I pulled this copy off the web site; if it differs from what was
posted here, that's why.

 

Shampoo bowed to the captain of the river barge in gratitude.
   

I thought bowing was only a Japanese schtick.

 

That's news to me. I was pretty sure bowing in some shape or
form was standard procedure through most Asian cultures. Maybe
not all the same nuances from one place to another, but 
still a feature. 

Akane, who had delivered her own share of smacks to Ranma,
looked on in sheer amazement. Several of the ship's crewmen
who had been watching hastily scribbled signs and held them
up: "10.0, 10.0, 9.75."
   

Erm... IMO, this particular bit is a bit too silly and implausible for the tone
of this series. But again, maybe it's just me.
 

I like to throw in these sillier moments in the scenes that
are not heavy on drama, mostly as a nod to the absurd roots
of Ranma 1/2. Maybe they seem a little out of place sometimes.

"There's no seduction going on here," Mikado shouted up to
his unwanted admirer. His voice lost a good bit of polish
when speaking to her - in fact, he sounded close to panic.
"This girl happens to be... uh... my fiancee!"
   

That's two fanfics in which he's tried something like this in. You'd think he'd
learn. :)

 

He's a little slow on the uptake, I guess. He needs
to read "Hearts and Minds" to see how much trouble he
can get into with these things.

I was toying with a third scene where he tries a kiss
when Konatsu's around (on Natsume, possibly), and this
time Kontasu plants an angler fish on his face. It didn't
really fit anywhere, and I wasn't sure everyone was as
familiar with the angler fish as I am. If you don't know
that it is the single most hideous fish in the universe,
the joke doesn't really work. So I dropped the notion.

Still, if you DO know what an angler fish looks like,
the idea of kissing one... brr.

Akane glared at him. "You ORDERED this yourself! We bought
these yesterday and you liked them just fine."

The young Saotome crossed his arms and turned away, not even
deigning to look at the egg rolls. "These are not fresh. You
expect me to eat these?" He made a disparaging noise.
   

I like these cat bits. They're not only funny, but completely believable given
the situation.

 

Good! I wasn't sure how they would play, but I've gotten
some good comments on them, so I think I scored a hit on
that idea.

>From the shadows came a low, confident laugh. "You fool,"
   

There's a few places like this where there's an extra > before "From". This is
inevitable in email (because a line beginning with "From" indicates the start
of a new message, so the email server munges all such lines) but you may want
to fix it on your web site copies.
 

So it's the word "from," is it? Must be something my version
of Word does as well. Thanks for letting me know about the
reason for that... it was bugging me.

<He's got a hot aura on one hand, and cold aura on the
other,> she observed. <That's... something new. He must have
learned that on the road.> She felt her pulse quicken, and
tried not to let her feelings show. <He's not for you
anymore,> she told herself. A pity... he could be SO cool
sometimes.
   

RANMA: Well, that's the left hand. Cold aura.

The word "cool" seems out of place for Shamps' speech patterns.

 

Hmm. Any suggestions? I mean, I try to differentiate between
Shamps' speech and thought patterns (and her speech when 
using her native tongue), so "cool" is presumably some kind 
of Chinese equivalent. 

<Well,> Neko-Shampoo thought as she arranged herself into a
comfortable position. <It's about time. I knew one of my
schemes to get a kiss out of Ranma would work someday.> She
was a cat, after all, and cats never made mistakes. This was
exactly how she had planned things to go all along.
   

Nice ending. This really brings home what Shampy is feeling.

 

Thanks. This part of the story was always supposed to be
where Shampoo bounces back from her setbacks and makes a
key contribution to Ranma's struggle to survive. Problem
was that where I broke off the story 5 years ago, I hadn't
written any of that yet, so "Relentless" came across as a
bit of Shampoo-bash.

That and the fact that her depiction in the early chapters
was too fanfic-cliche. So here's where things were supposed
to balance out.

Once again, good work. My only criticism is that a whole lot of relationships
seem to be resolving at one time -- Ranma/Akane, Ryoga/Ukyo, Nabby/Konatsu, and
Tatchi/Natsy all seem headed for definite closure with no further significant
obstacles. In a "match-'em-up" fic this wouldn't be at all unusual, but this
story really isn't of that genre. Anyway, just a minor issue. Keep 'em coming!

 

Hmm. This isn't quite the intent I had in mind. With Ranma/Akane
and Ryouga/Ukyou, the relationships are definitely supposed to
evolve to a point they never reached in the manga. That part is
intentional...

But for the others, the idea I was trying to get across is that
Nabiki (and Natsume) are headed towards the kind of chaotic
lives that Ranma and Akane lived before, with troublesome love
interests, odd challengers popping up, and so forth. Their lives
are still in the tone of the original manga, where Ranma and
the others are moving on to something more mature. 

I suppose if I introduced multiple fiancees or something that
would get it across more, but I don't want to spend too much
time on that crew. I'll think about how I might make it more
clear that the Nabiki/Konatsu and Natsume/Kunou relationships
are at the beginning of the "silliness phase," not the end.

Thanks for the corrections and comments, as always...

Grayson
http://www.talesfromthevault.com/relentless




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