Grammar/phrasing stuff that I have no particular response to snipped....
"Douglas MacDougall" <dougmacd@dougmacd.net> wrote:
Aha! Gary's insidious plan becomes clear! Did you notice all
the C&C he's been churning out in the last week or two? He's
been building up the guilt so people will feel like they have
to C&C *his* stuff!
Not exactly a secret. :) Actually, I've been preaching "C&C unto others"
for quite a while now.
"Well, Mrs.--"
"Akane."
"Well, Mrs Akane..."
"No, not Mrs. It's Akane."
"Well, Akane Akane..."
"..."
Doctor Tanaka nods. "Well, Akane, what we're dealing with here
is a rather advanced case of kidney deterioration. You see, the kidneys
have the job of filtering out wastes and...." The words trail off. His
wide country-boy eyes gaze up at me with kindness and sympathy. "I'm
sorry. I've already told you this."
Advanced kidney deterioration? Were
there any symptoms leading up to it?
I'm basing this on what happened to our real-life family dog last year.
In his case, it hit quite suddenly.
The outer room is empty as I enter and sit on one of the padded
benches. Colorful pamphlets lay on the table in front of me, explaining
the importance of timely vaccinations and proper hygiene. I don't feel
like reading.
You glossed over the cats yowling and dogs yapping
their heads off. ^_^ Is any vet office ever quiet?
I've seen 'em that way on occasion, particluarly if it's outside of
normal business hours and they have the kennel area well enough
separated from the examination rooms.
With nothing else to do, I sit back and wait, as I said, for my
husband, wondering a little angrily why he couldn't have stayed with me
through this. I thought they were friends. He was the one who nearly
throttled the doctor demanding a dialysis machine, until the doctor
explained why it wouldn't work. Then he read the letter we'd gotten from
Shampoo, and ran off to the location her map had shown, not explaining
why it couldn't wait just a few days.
Why *wouldn't* a dialysis machine work?
Not that it wouldn't work if they used it, but they wouldn't use one on
a pet who was old enough to be at the end of his rope anyway. (This part
needs to be changed, for reasons that you note later on.)
My mind wanders back to the last time I saw Ranma change back
into a male. It started out as a sunny day, and we decided to take a
walk in the park after school. Unfortunately, by the time we got home,
it wasn't sunny anymore, and we'd gotten caught in one of Nerima's
trademark sudden downpours.
Nerima has "trademark sudden downpours"?
That is *so* fanfic cliche, Gary! :j
Hey, it happens in the manga. :p
Ignoring potential issues of whether Ranma's the only reason why
Cologne is in Nerima, there's the matter of finding a buyer for
the restaurant, and planning travel arrangements.
I mean, is there any evidence that they're rolling in dough, and
can throw it away with the price hikes for last-minute ticket
purchases?
Maybe a better response would be to tell Shampoo to phone someone
>from the village and say that they'll be coming back?
OK, yeah, the general consensus seems to be that I cut this corner a
little too much. I'll change this.
I'm not sure how good this analogy is. I don't think viruses "go
dormant," but more importantly: viruses infect. This makes it
sound like Jusenkyo curses are transmissible. ^_^;
Since this analogy seems geared towards the mutation/resistance
analogy, I think desxribing it as a bacterial infection analogy
would be more appropriate.
Of course, this is getting rather technical...
I don't know if Cologne has that much knowledge of biology. :) But I'll
see what I can do with this.
"Ranma's curse has... evolved?" I said, wondering what more
there was that she hadn't told us yet.
COLOGNE: Of course not. Individuals can't evolve. They adapt.
ASH: [outside] Wow, an Eevee! I'm gonna catch it!
COLOGNE: [sigh]
I'm glad you explained this one to me on IRC. :)
"No trick. Very soon, even boiling water will change you into a
woman, Ranma; and no sort of water will change you back."
Not even a high-pressure environment where the boiling
point of water is higher than 100 celcius? :j
Or that much knowledge of physics, either. :)
"Great-grandmother no can help Ranma?" Shampoo pleaded. "No way
to cure curse?"
"I didn't say that," Cologne said. Ranma sat down and went back
to looking attentive. "The truth is, I'm not sure."
Obviously, she is sure. After all, she's planning on leaving
in the morning; she's not even willing to wait around for a
little while to see if the cure pans out?
This cure would take much longer than that to pan out.
cap: Zuihouniquan
(It's a proper noun. I won't mention the other occurences.)
What's the the gratuitous use of Chinese in this fic? :j
"The name I've heard for it is Zuihouniquan, or Spring of ____"
It translates to "ultimate drown spring." As for the gratuitousness of
the Chinese, let's remember that (1) as you say, it's a proper name (and
not even Viz refers to the main character of the series as Wild Horse)
and (2) this is a case where the POV character (Akane) doesn't
understand what the word means except for what she can get via context.
"An issue of 'Shaved Nuns in Bondage Quarterly.' He must've put
it away in the wrong box."
Woulnd't it be more appropriate to say that they grabbed the
wrong box? Hell, this is chicken-scratch Happosai; you're
making a big assumption if you think he organizes *anything*! ;)
Very true. But it's not the wrong box for them because the other stuff
in the box *was* useful information.
...which suggests he obviously never read this far.
So why did he put the book in Akane's lap? ^_^;
He just read the first few words and assumed it
was something good, without turning the page?
GENMA: What's the problem with that?
Well, like father like son, no? :)
For long moments, awkward silence filled the room. I stared into
the darkness, waiting for the shadows to coalesce.
Waiting the the shadows to coalesce? Huh?
In other words, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Is the
meaning not clear?
Grabbing a shirt and skirt from the closet, I managed to get
dressed. I figured on having to drag Ranma forcibly out of bed; but as I
came downstairs I knew I was wrong. He was already there, talking to
someone on the telephone.
suggest: I figured that I'd have to drag
What's with the semicolon instead of a comma before the "but"?
Will change.
[...]
Breakfast was waiting for me at the table. I sat down. "Who was
that on the phone, Ranma?"
suggest: waiting on the table, so I sat down.
(It's a little less choppy. Also, is Akane the last
one up, or is breakfast waiting for other people, too?)
She's the last one up.
My first impulse was to make fun of his plan. *You and your
crazy ideas, Ranma.* But surprisingly, this one didn't seem so bad. I'd
been ready to give up and accept the change as inevitable, but maybe we
didn't need to. If Ranma could just avoid any contact with water, then
he can stay male. Granted, that was a pretty big if, but Ranma had often
succeeded at things that at first seemed impossible. If anyone could
pull this off, he could.
Of course, with two more brain cells, he would have realized
he could have asked Akane to go get the suit for him...
Nah, Ranma's a do-it-yourselfer. :)
"In his room, last I checked," Dad answered. "He said something
about taking a nap." He raised his voice. "Saotome! Dinnertime!"
SOUN: Here boy, here boy! [whistle]
UKYO: I am not a dog!
SOUN: ...
UKYO: Uh, I mean Genma isn't a dog...
Good, I needed an "Ukyo as a dog" reference somewhere in this fic. Her
fans have come to expect that from me. :)
He looked up as I stepped in. "Oh, hey, Akane." He was stretched
out sideways on his futon, one of Happosai's dusty old books lying on
the floor next to him.
Which box did the book come out of? ;)
AKANE: "Big-breasted High School Girls In Trouble?" What is this?!
RANMA: Hey, I, um... thought there might be a cure in here?
"Oh? Is this the 'let's all be friends' speech? Ran-chan's made
his choice, and the rest of us should just smile and say 'oh well, the
better girl won?' Sorry, honey, but that's not me."
What's with Ukyo? Why is she saying this? Maybe if she she saw
Akane and Ranma enter the store arm in arm, and Akane pushing a
reluctant Ranma forward I could see it, but all Akane did was walk
in the door!
See my response to Bert.
[...]
I nodded. "Cologne said it was a second stage of the curse that
happens naturally for some victims, mainly non-Chinese."
suggest: happens to some
(Did you mean to include the connotations of "naturally"?)
Not sure what you mean.
"Don't mention it." The icy edge was back in her voice.
"Anything else I can do for you, sugar?"
cap: Sugar
(Used as a proper name.)
Um, I don't think so. It's more of a description, innit? As in "Get
lost, jerk!"
"Okay, I give up," he said. "You win." Quite some admission,
coming from him. "Akane, do you wanna marry me?"
I sighed. "Ranma, you idiot, why do you think I went through the
trouble of...." I stopped, as it dawned on me why he'd said that. "Oh.
Yes, Ranma. Yes!"
Yep. They're a matched pair of geniuses. ^_^;;;
Yeah, that's why they go so well together. :)
The ceremony went off without a hitch; after everything we'd
been through, it was quite anticlimactic. Ranma seemed almost
disappointed that no one showed up to demand that he marry her (or him)
instead. I could almost see his ego deflating. *You're damaged goods,
Saotome; no one wants you anymore.*
Then he shouldn't have sent Kuno away. :j
I got rid of Kuno because nothing I could've done with him seemed
particularly interesting for the fic.
"No, no, it's all right," I said. "I'm sure Ranma would be happy
to show you a few moves, wouldn't you, dear?" I tried to imitate the
voice of gentle but firm wifely persuasion that women like Mrs. Saotome
used.
cap: woulnd't you, Dear.
(I think.)
This one you may be correct on.
Next, Ranma picked up a bowl of fruit from the table and tossed
the contents high into the air, then leapt up to intercept them. Twin
knives, one held in each of his hands, slashed out at the fruit, cutting
faster than I could see. Slices of apple, pear, and orange tumbled down,
landing with precision back in the bowl. Instant fruit salad. Ranma
grinned as he lifted the bowl for everyone to see, like a magician
showing off the results of a trick; the oranges had landed on top,
arranged to form a smiley-face.
Where'd the knives come from? [scratches head]
Um... knifespace? They were lying around on the food table?
The audience went wild. Cheers erupted and whoop-whistles
blared. Kenichi banged against the wall with his single arm, forever
settling the question of what one-handed clapping sounded like. Koji
excitedly described what Ranma had done to Ichiro, whose mouth fell open
in amazement.
Wouldn't Kenichi just slap the wall with his hand? ^_^;
Um, yeah. I was trying not to repeat "hand," but it looks kinda
unavoidable, I guess.
Heh. You've kept it unclear whether Kasumi is a bubblehead, or
silent master watching everything in the background. ^_^
Yup. I like it that way. :)
"Look, I'm not having her throwing away her whole life because
of me. She deserves better than that. Just tell her that I had to go
away. Tell her that nothing is her fault, that she's a wonderful person
and all that but I just can't marry her or even see her anymore. It's
just how things are, and there's nothing either of us can do about it,
and she shouldn't wait for me because I'm not coming back."
You know, the first time I read that paragraph, I thought Ranma was
talking. You did just come off talking about Ranma's depression, and
I guess I missed the marriage remark. You might want to quote Ryoga
as the speaker, or maybe note that Akane is hearing a male voice.
OK, I'll see what I can do about this.
Months stretched into years. Our lives had once again settled
into a sort of stable pattern, just as they had after Ranma's arrival in
Nerima so long ago. It was a status quo that lasted until the day the
letter came.
It might be appropriate to show some deterioration of P-chan's
condition. If the kidney problem is a complication of old age,
there should be some other signs, right?
Um, I dunno. I don't think there were any in the case of our dog, but
then he had other chronic problems for most of his life.
I took a spatula from the wall rack and brained him with it.
UKYOU: Feels GOOD, doesn't it, Sugar?
AKANE: [blushes]
UKYO: And it's not abuse! Just ask one of my fanboys!
DOUG: Here we go with the author's personal gripe list again....
Say, if Ranma dashed out of the house then, (a) how did he know what
vet Akane had gone to and (b) he couldn't have been around to yell at
the doctor about the dialysis machine.
(a) Same vet she always uses, Pinky.
(b) Whoops. Continuity error. This is why writing fics piecemeal over a
very long time period is a bad idea. :)
You already did the "like a girl, no like a person" line.
Oops.
Is this a sequel to She Knows? Where did Akane meake the leap of
logic that Ranma was trying to turn P-chan (back) into a human?
Well, why else would he douse P-chan with (human) male water?
Everyone else seems to think this is a wonderful Ranma gets
permanently cursed fic. I dunno about that. Sure, it doesn't
read like a normal fic of those types, but there's nothing
spectacular about it, either. It just reads...
Well, like a Ranma fic. Sure, it's not blatantly out of character,
(well, ignoring Cologne) but I'd hope that would be true of all
Ranma fics. ^_^
Well, so would I, but.... :)
It's not really breaking ground, either. Michelle Thatcher
recently posted Dead Butch, another first person with a similar
never-give-up theme, but from Ranma's POV.
At the time Michelle posted that fic, I was nearly finished with this
one. I think her story shows a lot of promise, but there's certainly
room for more than one such story, IMO.
I *do* think it does a good job as a moving fic dealing with a pet.
Hell, it moved me more than most darkfics where Ranma characters
die. That probably has something to do with the fact that my father,
brothers and I were all present as our treasured pet slowly died
before our eyes, twitching and meowing, looking off into the distance
much as P-Chan.
...
I liked the fic. Some parts kinda dripped "Gary's personal gripe
list," but it wasn't too bad. More importantly, the writing and
characterization were both good, and the plot was interesting.
Thanks; glad you enjoyed it, and as always I'm grateful for the detailed
and witty commentary.
Looking forward to more. Post something tomorrow. ;)
Didn't quite get it in the next day, but HaM 4 is now out. And I won't
push my luck by demanding you give me comments on that one too. :)
Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html