I thank you quite greatly for taking the time to do this. I won't
comment on the technical corrections except to say that I corrected
nearly all of them (there are a couple of places I made other
changes, or left the original because, to me, it sounded better).
I will however respond to some of the less technical comments. :)
On Wed, Aug 26, 1998 at 11:48:19PM -0700, Jamie and Bridget Wilde wrote:
Ranma tumbled through the air, then hit the ground. Breaking his
momentum in an instinctive fashion, he rolled to absorb the impact.
As he tried to recover from the dual shock of the tome and the
sudden and furious assault by Happousai, he took stock of where he
was. Lying on the ground on his back, he realized.
Now how can he realize this if he hasn't opened his eyes yet?
General sense of up and down? Pressume of something on his back? I'll
make this more clear.
... There was a rock wall behind him, no, under him. Lying on
the ground on his back, he realized. ...
woman. And despite his posturing to the contrary, he'd never been
comfortable enough with the curse to explore his female form in
that sort of detail.
Could it be...? Ranma now has... a libido?
As for posturing, most teenage boys won't even admit that they jerk off,
even if they're single-handedly (pardon the pun) keeping companies that
make hand lotions in business. I doubt Ranma would brag about what he's
been doing to himself as a girl to anyone.
Not what I meant, so modified for clarity:
And despite his posturing about being better built, ...
The sobbing took over for a minute, until she heard a soft knock
on the door. Kasumi, it had to be. <Just great,> she thought.
"Akane, can I come in?"
She had half a mind to scream 'No, go away' at the top of her lungs,
but she couldn't. Nobody screamed at Kasumi. Ever.
Lo, I see the shadow of Mike Loader looming yonder...
I must admit there might be some coloring there, though I will
endeavor to keep it from dominating the characterization. :)
"Please Akane?"
Comma after 'Please,' and any time you are using the direct address of a
character in speech.
I should just buy a bucket of commas and sprinkle them liberally
through the fic. Though it may not seem it, this has already been
through about 4 prereaders who all had me add a double handful of
them. :)
Ranma hesitated in front of the door to the house, not sure if he
was ready to face the rest of his 'family', let alone Akane.
I can understand why Ranma is reluctant to see Akane, but why should he
be concerned about anyone else?
He's a little confused himself, and if Akane has told anyone, (which
she has, as above) then it's entirely possible that his father and
Soun are going to go ballistic.
"How dare you make Akane cry after she made that food especially
for you!"
Never mind. Now I get it. Ryouga's grudges extend far beyond what mere
mortals deem rational.
More or less. Ryouga needs an excuse, but not much else. Will make a
note to give some context.
In the next paragraph:
... <Whew, he's still mad about the other day. No way pig boy ...
steel that she presented to the world. Concern, pity, sympathy,
and perhaps worst of all, love. And as much as she'd deny it
publicly, the up and coming businesswoman did care for her family.
Now she had to figure out what to do about the macho jock who seemed
to make upsetting her younger sister his sole goal in life....
Enter Nabiki the vindictive... This is a characterization I don't really
agree with. Nabiki has never shown much family loyalty, and I doubt that
she'd go to any great lengths to get Ranma unless he has done something
to her personally. Just my opinion. I suppose you needed an adversary
somewhere in the story.
Yup. This is the one character where I have more or less deliberately
chosen to go with a semi-canon of fanfic rather than the original,
mostly for exactly the reason you point out.
"Cheer up okyakusama, it can't be all bad." The bowl of ramen slid
under his hands, the wisps of steam warm against his cool skin.
Ranma smiled his thanks at the man barely older than himself and
then returned his contemplation to the food in front of him. He
muttered "itadakemasu" to himself as he broke the chopsticks apart,
While I appreciate the colorful use of Japanese in fanfiction, the fact
that I don't speak the language makes it difficult to appreciate what
you are trying to do with it in this paragraph. This is a personal peeve
of mine, but remember that there are lots of Japanese deficient readers
just like me out there.
Hrm, guess those slipped through. I tend to inject a lot of Japanese
normally, to the point of doing parts of the dialogue completely
in Japanese at times, and really tried to tone it down for this.
Since I like the way this scene works (Definitely the one I like
best), I'll try to make it apparent from context what the words
mean.
"Cheer up okyakusama, my customers should be happy."
... muttered the ritual "itadakemasu" ...
When the morsel had cooled just enough he popped it in his mouth,
savoring the taste on his tongue. He sucked the broth off it
carefully, and let the cooked flesh dissolve into shreds before
swallowing it with exaggerated care. The ramen cook beamed as his
customer nodded appreciation of the fare, and then returned to his
work, slicing and chopping vegetables for the next batch of customers.
Ahhh... Visions of "Tampopo" come to mind in this sequence. Have you
seen said film by Juzo Itami?
Indeed. This scene was sort of homage to that.
"No need for profanity vile sorcerer. I know my presence awes the
likes of you, but you may simply kneel in respect..." Kunou Tatewaki
stood on the other side of the street, waving his bokken in a
vaguely threatening manner.
Decent Kuno-speak here.
Again, you have a well written fight sequence here, but I question the
excuse that drives your intentions in this part of the story. It's
awfully convenient how all his regular enemies showed up in time to
become the victims of Ranma's new technique.
There are a couple of places where 'awful convenient' things happen.
Some times because I'm a little lazy, other times because, well, it's
Ranma and that happens, and some have an aspect we haven't seen quite
yet in chapter 1.
Then it hit him, she was playing with him, trying to embarrass him
the same way he had embarrassed Akane. His anger rose again and
he shoved her back with both hands. "Bitch. What kind of joke is
th...." The threat died on his tongue as he saw her eyes snap
open. Instead of anger or amusement, there was only the raw lust.
Nabiki was a good actor, but not that good, and Ranma could feel
her desire rolling off in palpable waves.
D'oh! I was thinking along the same lines as Ranma, myself.
<little dance> Then I have done exactly what I intended to do. :)
Finally his hindbrain had had enough of the situation. It was time
for fight or flight, and with that he dived towards her, swerving
at the last second to avoid her clutching grasp. A conveniently
open window offered escape and he accepted, scrambling over her
bed and leaping through it. He hit the ground in the front yard
at a full run, bounced to the wall and then was down the street,
moving in great bounds like a frightened deer. Which, truth be
told, wasn't too inaccurate.
And a million slavering Nabiki fanboys gnash their teeth in despair!
(What do you expect for a 'fic with no lemon tag?)
No lemon tag. Though a big fat 'mature audiences' warning.
I thought this was a radical and abrupt change in the personality you
crafted for Nabs earlier. You might consider justifying it a little
better. If it was a test of his loyalty to Akane, then say as much. If
it's just a case of Nabs lusting after him, it needs work, especially if
the only reason you're doing it is to accentuate Ranma's current
confusion regarding human sexuality.
More reasoning behind it than this, which has yet to be revealed.
Something tickled the back of his mind, but he couldn't reach it
in time. He thought about Nabiki, and the feel of her body against
his, then shoved the thought away before he could decide he liked
it. The middle sister was extremely good looking in her own way.
A sort of animal magnetism, a guy just instinctively knew she was
more woman than he could handle. She could make him squirm without
ever her needing to say a word, just a slight arch of one of those
delicate eyebrows could convey her contempt, annoyance, curiosity,
or now, lust.
This is a good build up of Ranma's currently muddled sexuality. First we
had the sweet innocent (and very pretty) Kasumi who unknowingly tempts
him, followed by the vibrant in-your-face sexuality of Nabiki in
contrast. He refuses both, but is tormented by his thoughts. What can
Akane bring, and is this why he truly fears an encounter with her? I
guess we shall see.
Heh. I feel I should chuckle evilly here.
He'd done it. He'd caused the sudden reversal. He'd used the
chyou o sasu on her, but without taking her ki for it. Just his
own. And the words he'd spoken. It hadn't been paralysis of the
body, but of the will.
Ranma sat alone in the tree for a rather long time.
Dun dun DUN!!!!
Dangerous technique, ne?
Sort of. Also, believe it or not, it's more or less a throw away.
Ranma is about to start a very wild ride.
Yeah, I see the faint urgings of Sean Gaffeny's "Complete Control" here.
This doesn't really quite begin to describe what's to come. :)
I good introductory tale for what may prove to be a long series. The new
techniques and their effects are good fodder for stories, but I wonder
at a long term conflict to unify them. Ranma has yet to speak to Akane,
so perhaps we'll see.
Long is probably a fair description of it.
There is a unifying plot, which is still a touch vague, but starting
to shape up quite nicely. (It's vague because that's how I write,
the characters are put in a situation and then things happen. When
all is done, I look at where I am and set up another situation.
Can't plot to far ahead of myself because often scenes turn out
completely differently than I had intended).
-DaR