On Sun, 25 Jul 1999, Ronny Hedin wrote:

    Nabiki had a slightly shellshocked look.  "Yup.  It's going
to be like this every morning.  The sooner I move out, the
better."  She shook her head disgustedly.  "Lovebirds."

    Soun gaped at her.  "What?  But, but the insults, the
hitting, the yelling...."

    "Oh, Father, that's just how they are," Kasumi said as
though to a slightly dim child, pouring herself a cup of tea as
she did so.

All in all, a wonderful scene - it captured the somewhat
friendlier chaos very well, IMO.

Except, perhaps, for these last few paragraphs, which I can't
really find myself agreeing with.

OK.  I'm not sure what you mean, though; I assume you're disagreeing with
the characterizations of Nabiki, Soun, and/or Kasumi, but I don't know
how to fix that because I don't know what you see as wrong.

    Akane ignored the crack; it was essentially true.  "Ranma,
remember we can't let them know we're married to each other.
They think we're married to two guys.  No PDAs, all right?"

    "'PDAs'?"

    "It figures you wouldn't know that.  Public Displays of
Affection.  Hugging, kissing, holding hands...."

... is PDA an *established* abbrevation/term? (otherwise, it
strikes me as odd for Akane to use it as such)

Yes.  Definitely in the US, and I believe it is (was?) in use in Japan
too, in one of the odder instances of foreign loan-words, er, acronyms.

    Ranma was less wary; fortunately her locker hadn't been

IMO "fortunately, her"

I agree.  Thanks!

    "There's that word again," Ranma muttered.  "If you're
askin' if I boffed 'er, yeah, I did.  So?"

IMO, Ranma does seem a bit *too* casual answering that here.

He's stressed.  :)

    Ranma's restraint shattered.  "Kodachi, you IDIOT!  Don't
you GET it yet?!  I married A--  I married for love!  Not honor,
not promises!  I don't love you!  I'll NEVER love you the way you
want!"  Her shout echoed in the gymnasium, and she suddenly
noticed that all the other girls had stopped what they were doing
and were staring up at the two of them.

Something's up with Kodachi - she *is* supposed to realise Ranma
doesn't love her, after all. I just hope it is intentional. ^_^

At this point, Kodachi knows Ranma doesn't love her, but she doesn't know
he loves Akane; she's always supposed that she has a chance, if she can
just figure out how to catch his interest.  The wedding put a crimp in
that, but she's persistent.  Oh, boy, is she persistent.  The barrier has
abruptly been raised, but she's not about to give up.

Ranma, OTOH, is trying to discourage her, but doesn't know how...

    Kodachi's brow furrowed.  "But why, Ranma-sama?  That person
fed you horrid dishes, berated you without end, and even abused
you physically--"  Kodachi broke off, and her eyes widened in
sudden surmise.  "Ranma-sama!  Why didn't you TELL me?!"

    "I'm TRYIN' ta tell ya!" Ranma screeched.

    Kodachi paid no attention.  "I would have been HAPPY to
inflict as much pain upon you as you desired, darling!"  She
produced a large mallet and wound up.  Ranma, stunned by her
enthusiastic leap to an erroneous conclusion, didn't have a
chance.  WHACK!

... I would have found this funnier if it hadn't reminded me for
a bit off that fic where Ranma was forced to, um, discipline
an Akane with a control problem, and Kodachi exhibiting
jealousy of that... ^_^

"Proper Punishment" by Tom Wrensch, if memory serves.  No, this Kodachi
has no overtly masochistic tendencies, and not even sadistic, really, as
we'll see in the next chapter.  Sorry for the unfortunate association,
though.

Still, nice bit, if a bit predictable.

Oddly enough, it's my second version of this scene; the first was...
darker.

    "I beat you at the wedding, Kodachi," Akane snarled.  "I can
do it again any time you're dumb enough to try me."  She ripped
the mallet out of Kodachi's grip, flipped it into the air, and
caught it by the handle.  Something a little like a grin but much
nastier crossed her face as she hefted it.  "Not bad."

IMO, when a sudden mallet starts shifting hands and be tossed
around, the jokes is somewhat overdone - because it becomes
too *obvious*; if this much attention is put on it, there really
*has* to be an explanation, whereas one that is only seen in
a single frame (or only mentioned off-handedly in a single
sentence) does not have as much of a presence.

OK.  I figured that since Akane didn't lay hands on a mallet even once in
"Taming", I could be forgiven this lapse.  :)

    "I apologize for the failure of my attempts to reveal it,
Captain," Yuriko said formally, hoping it would calm Kodachi a
little.

Apologize and admit it was her fault? This is where Kodachi
uses the dark side of the force to squeeze the poor girl's
throat, right? ^_^

Heh.  No, that's someone else's Star Wars fusion.  :)

    "I-- you-- argh!"  Akane stopped and took a deep breath.
"Well, sometimes I feel like it, and sometimes I don't, and
sometimes it's just not the right place or time!"

Now she sounds like Yuu. ^_^

Yuu who?  Er, I mean, the reference escapes me.

    Akane smiled back, then turned to open the door.

*grumbles but holds quiet, not quite willing to comment on Ukyou's
characterization with the knowledge of what tends to happen to the
FFML whenever somebody does*

Rats.  Well, please bring it up the next time we're on FFIRC, then,
because I'm interested in your opinion even if I don't agree with it.
Especially if I don't agree with it.

    The old woman nodded.  "The information alleges that there
is dark sorcery making you appear female, and that hot water will
break the spell.  Ordinarily we would dismiss such suggestions,
but as the source is, ah, highly placed, and by the nature of our
school we are sensitive to possible, er, evil influences on our
charges, we have decided to make the test.  It seems harmless
enough.  The water is not hot enough to injure."

No matter how high Kodachi is, I can *not* believe a headmistress
of a semi-prestigious school actually *testing* something on that
level of silliness.

Uh... I toned down the silliness a little, but this IS still the
Ranmaverse.  I was worried that the adults at St.H would appear TOO
serious, compared to Principal Kuno, the organizers of the onsen obstacle
race, the guys with the jellyfish-swimsuit, and all the other adult
supporting characters in Ranma 1/2.  Guess I was wrong.  :)

    When Kasumi came down again wearing her gi, she could hear a
rhythmic thudding noise coming from outside the house.  From the
covered walkway leading from the house to the dojo, she saw Ranma
lashing out at the rope-covered post in the side yard: punch,
punch, kick.  Punch, punch, kick.  Punch, punch, CRACK!  Ranma
stood looking down at the broken post and breathing heavily.

And the reader asks, grinding his/her teeth - female or male ranma?
No specific mention is made (at least for several paragraphs, at
a quick glance), and while Ranma *is* refered to with the
male pronoun, that doesn't need to mean somethin - with the
non-changing incident earlier, it feels like it would be nice
to mention what form now.

Very good point.  I'll see about fixing this.

    Kasumi waited until Akane was out of the dojo, then relaxed
slightly, sighed, and fanned herself with her hand.  "Oh, my,"
she said to herself.  "I really need to find someone to marry
soon."

Throughout the latter half of this scene, I don't really buy
the Kasumi. She feels a little too, I dunno, open perhaps.

Akane and Ranma changed significantly over the course of "Taming"; that's
what the fic was about.  So did Kasumi, if not as much.  Heck, just having
the Saotomes out of the house-- well, mostly-- for six months should have
made an appreciable difference.  I tried to show this; maybe I failed...

    "Boy, do you ever.  I mean, what were you thinking?"

    "All right, already.  I said I was sorry!"

    "Fine, then," Ranma muttered, sitting on the roof.  Akane
sat beside him and leaned up against him, and he put an arm
around her absently.

Frankly, I think Ranma would be at least a *little* concerned
about how the matter really *could* be taken as something it
wasn't.

It was.  By Akane.  She admitted she'd misunderstood, and that closed the
matter as far as Ranma was concerned, give or take a little nose-rubbing. 

    "I didn't change.  I tricked 'em.  I used cold aura to take
the heat out of the water before it hit me."

OK - now I felt cheated; if it *was* a trick of Ranma's, it
really should have been explained at such, when the scene
was after all shown from his (her) very head; as it was written,
it seemed like some new mysterious phenomenon.

<hangs head> Sorry... it just seemed like the right place at the time.  I
thought I'd foreshadowed it adequately to premit deferring the
explanation.  I'll think about it, though. 

Thanks for the comments!


Vince Seifert    Network Analyst     seifertv@csus.edu
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