Vincent Seifert <seifertv@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
And now for something slightly different...
"... a man with two genders."
"We've DONE that!"
Grinning, the pigtailed woman followed them into the house.
Her breath caught in her throat at the beauty of the woman
standing just beyond the tiled depression in the entryway; her
kimono, the dark green color of forest shade, was adorned with
paler green suggesting bamboo leaves, and her long hair was swept
and pinned into a sable sculpture.
"Welcome home, husband," the woman said softly, bowing.
Ranma cleared her throat and bowed in turn. "Thank you,
wife. It's good to be home. I hope everyone's well?"
Kinda strange that you decided to start calling him by name at this
particluar point.
"Well, good," Ranma said. "I guess he's taking after his
mother. I haven't forgotten that time SOMEone brought in ca-
cats to drape all over me." He directed a mock severe look at
Kasumi.
"Mock severe look" doesn't quite seem right, though I'm not quite sure
what would be better.
"Hmph." Ranma glared at his sons. "Listen up, you two.
Don't put those critters anywhere Daddy's going to come across
them. Not as a joke, not as a prank, not ever. I mean it."
"I won't," Taro said. Jiro nodded.
Kasumi named them, right? Ranma'll never understand why she vetoed his
suggestions of "Moon Unit" and "Dweezil."
"Er...." Ranma wondered how to say it, then decided to just
say it. "Do you want another child, Kasumi?"
Kasumi smiled. "The two we have are enough for me, I
suppose. If you want another, though...."
"No, but I'd really, y'know, like to have sex again...."
Ranma greeted the sunrise in his customary way, on the road
or at home, performing a solitary, elegant dance of precisely
controlled violence. He finished and turned just as Akane spoke.
"That's new."
That's a rather vague description. Can we get a better idea of what it
looked like?
"Well, it's splendid. Go sit down and we'll chat. Supper's
almost ready." Nodoka hurried into the kitchen and bustled
around for a moment, then came out again as Ranma settled at the
table.
Genma came down the stairs, a bit thicker all around, but
still moving like a bear rather than a hippopotamus. "Evening,
Son. Looks like you still have all your parts."
Huh?
"Kiima?"
"She, uh, didn't like having her picture taken, and I found
out the hard way. That blur there is one of her wings."
"Wings?" Genma and Nodoka queried in unison.
Why's Genma surprised by this? He saw her wings with his own eyes in
vol. 37-38. And Nodoka more than likely would've heard about her from
Genma or one of the others.
"Saotome School Ultimate Technique: Martial Arts Sneaking
Around Discreetly!"
That would be the Umisenken? :)
[snip to end]
Not bad, but frankly I think it suffers a bit from not being able to
break out of the tone set by your other work. It could be that I'm just
misunderstanding where you were going with this... but it seemed to me
that this could've had a much harder edge to it.
The situation you've set up is one where everyone's gotten what they
want, yet no one has. I think a lot of resentments would lie under the
happy exteriors of these characters. I'm not saying the story should be
an angst-fest, but there's a lot of conflict potential in that, and I
think you could exploit it better.
Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html