Hey, Mark!

On Sat, 8 May 1999, Mark Ferrer wrote:

"Aiya." she said, leaning onto her fiancee.

Aiya is used in the same place as one would say 'Oh no!"

Shampoo and Mousse looked up at the night sky, watching the meteor shower

              ^^^^^^
Gave it away, right here.

Almost instinctively, Shampoo's slapped him. Hard.

IMHO with good reason.  Raising, then dashing someone's hopes like that...

"The man you've been with today wasn't Ranma Saotome. I never pretended to
act like him. Just look like him. So tell me, who do you love?" he asked,
rubbing his cheek.

Probably better to connet the two middle quoted sentences like so:

'I never pretended to act like him, just pretended to look like him.'

Well, Mousse isn't acting like Mousse either.  No overprotectiveness, no
randomly shouting to passerbys about his love for Shampoo, and no
unwarrented attempts at hugging.  So, I question the validity of
the ending.

I don't think this fic is really fair to the reader.  There's -no-
indication from his actions that 'Ranma' is Mousse that I can tell (and if
there is, I'd like to see a list please).  Because of this lack of
foreshadowing, when the revelation comes, I cannot suspend my disbelief of
the situation. 

I'll admit that I'm far from being a Mousse fan.  In fact, my first post
on the ffml was a short 'introspective' fic that unfavorable compares
Mousse with another character.  I guess that one reason that I'm
commenting on this work is that in my notes of the orignal piece, I
mentioned that instead of flames, if any Mousse supporters wished to give
rebuttal, they present their arguments in a counter-fic, yet for a year
and a half, I did not see any such fanfic.  Until now. 

This seems to fit the role perfectly, but without stronger arguments, I
think the whole conclusion seems unplausible. If you could have Mousse
exhibit his normal characteristics(both good and bad) under the guise of
Ranma, and *still* have Shampoo fall for him in a realistic fashion, this
would be much stronger. 

-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 was 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...