On Thu, May 14, 1998 at 07:04:01PM +0000, Gary Kleppe wrote:

	"Ranma, prepare to... UK!"

Aw, didn't we just have this discussion?  Ryouga's only wandered as
far as Okinawa...  He's never made it to Britain. :P
 

	"Darling!" Mousse's voice resonated through the Nekohanten.
"Darling, are you here?"

I guess we know that Mousse won't be eating P-Chan, since he's a 
Mousse-Lum.

:>
 

	"I won't tell anyone, Darling! You can count me to act as if I
were still smitten by Shampoo."

This naugty kitten has lost his smitten...
 

	"Oh, Ko-chan, that was wonderful!" Nabiki lay back against the
pillow, catching her breath. "I never knew you could use a gymnastics
club *that* way!"

Did she extend the spikes?
 

	"I mean that he is an insanely jealous parent. Any affection or
attention shown to one of his children would incite him to action.
Cutting your hair would only be his first attempt to dissuade you. From
there he would move on to worse and worse things until you were forced
to give in to him, for my safety if not yours."

So I guess it's not quite accurate to say that his bariken is worse than
his bite? :P
 

	She would never have believed that it would come to this. What
would her family say if they knew Saotome Nodoka to be involved in an
extra-marital affair? Several times, she had suspected her husband of
cheating on her; had she caught him at it, she would surely have
demanded his head. Now she was the one committing the offense, and not
just in an isolated incident, but on a regular basis. Was she that much
of a hypocrite? How could she preach honor to others and disregard it so
flagrantly in her own actions?

Oh, I'm sure she'd find a way...
 

	Nodoka heard a noise from the back entrance, and turned her head
to investigate. Her lover abruptly entered, completely naked, pushing a
wheelbarrow in front of him. She stared curiously at its yellowish
contents. "What is that?" she asked.

	"Crushed pineapple," he replied, grinning broadly. "I be
bringin' in de whipped cream and chopped nuts next, wahine. We goan'
make a human sundae!"

'Scuse me...

<HURRRRGGGGGHHHH!>

	Nodoka smiled. Though she enjoyed feeling like a little girl,
being a woman also had its moments.

Though I've always thought Nodoka was a few bricks short of a full load,
I didn't think she was _this_ far gone. :)
 

###

	Akane closed her bedroom door. She smiled at the piglet resting
atop her bed, playfully scratching him under the chin. "Ready for
beddy-bye, P-chan?"

	She pulled open the top drawer of her dresser, taking out a
small thermos bottle. Moving leisurely back to the bed, she poured the
water on top of the piglet, careful not to wet the quilt.

She's 16 years old.  She should have grown out of that by now. :P

	"I-- I've always been a MAN! I have *no idea* what it's like
to--"

Well, sorta...
 

	As she busily scrubbed the dishes clean, she pictured the scene
in her mind, the one she had imagined a hundred times before. Ranma
finally deciding that he's fed up with his life, that he truly loved his
cute fiancee and wants to elope with her. Herself hugging him excitedly
and telling him how much she'd been waiting for this day -- true, but
not in the way he thought. Ranma meeting her the next day, his
belongings all packed, his eyes full of love, love for her. Herself and
Hikaru driving away, cheerfully waving and calling out *Bye-Bye!* to
Ranma. Ranma's expression changing from love to shock, then to sadness,
then to hurt, then to anger, as he ran in vain trying to catch them,
eyes crying, arms flailing about desperately, voice crying out the words
that made her entire life worthwhile.

	*You said you'd take me with you!*

Well, appropriate tit-for-tat, I suppose.

No explanation was given for why Gos was going after Akane, though.
 

	"I told ya before. It's Pop. He may be a stupid jerk, but he's
the only family I got. 

In other words, worse than none.

	"I guess it was. I didn't know I'd be a girl when I got there,
or that the dumb Guide would screw things up so much. I can't believe
that jerk! Where'd he get that 'kiss of death' stuff from? How can he be
a guide when he don't understand nothin' about your laws?"

I take it that the book was wrong, too?

And why did Shampoo not seem to recognise the male Ranma as Ranma when
she first arrived in Nerima?
 

	Ranma paused a moment to take in the spectacle -- her muscular
yet supple form, her enormous breasts, her hair of lustrous jet black
that reached down past her waist. All of it displayed for him without a
trace of modesty or embarrassment. Quite a difference from Akane, who
seemed to be so ashamed of her own body, of her own femininity, that she
had to beat him up every time he almost saw something.

"every time he almost saw something?"  Huh?
 

	Genma wheeled a cart into view. On it stood a television set
with attached VCR. Soun flipped the switch to on and slid a tape into
its mouth.

Yeah.  I've had VCR's like that before. :)
 

	My aim was to write the ultimate in "Hidden Relationships"
stories, one where just about *every* character was secretly seeing
someone unexpected. (I did leave out Happi, which was probably a relief

Not to mention the Jusenkyo Guide, Dr. Tofu, the Golden Pair, Sentarou,
Tsubasa, the Gambling King, the Nikuman Men, Picolette Chardin and 
Madame St. Paul, Pantyhose Tarou, Mariko Konjou, Herb, Mint, Lime, Hinako,
Shinnosuke, Kumon Ryuu, Pink and Link, Akari, Rakkousai, Hayato Myoujin,
Konatsu and his stepfamily, Plum, Kiima, Saffron.

Whew!

to everyone.) This was originally supposed to be just a quickie spamfic.
Maybe it should've stayed that way. But as I wrote, many of the
relationships expanded and took on lives of their own, as I started to
almost believe that they were possible.

	I have no idea whether anyone else will be amused by this, but
it was fun to write. It was also a broadening experience for me, as most
of the relationships went strongly against my own character biases. If
you've read this far, I'd be happy to hear what you thought of this
story.

Most of the relationships here were given enough justification that I
might just accept them on one of my less cantankerous days.  The Ukyou-
Gos one is a notable exception, though.  It looks like you tried to 
justify it, but the justification degenerated into some cheesy stock
lines.  Just how Gos stopped obsessing over Akane, or why he was 
pretending to be obsessed, whichever the case may have been, wasn't
explained either.

In a number of places, the dialogue doesn't sound natural because
you have the characters say things that are necessary for the reader
to understand the story, but that the characters involved wouldn't
bother saying because the other character would already know it.

-- 
  -Sean Connor (sec@frodo.com) (sec@softhome.net)
          ____           
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   |________________|    |
    |  |  |  |  |  |     |    - Where do you want to go today?
    |  | Intel  |  |     |
    |  | Inside |  |     |    - OK, we'll have Ryouga take you there.
    |  |  |  |  |  |     |
    |  |  |  |  |  |     |
    `--------------'     |