Adrian Tymes wrote:

Brian Randall wrote:

Adrian Tymes wrote:

ruffled -- rustled (?) I'm not _quite_ sure that 'ruffled' works the
way you want it to.

'ruffled' sounds a bit better: 'rustled' implies it made the kind of
noise hair doesn't make, no?  (Unless her hair was, say, dry leaves.)

  I did not know that. I thought it also meant the motion.

Kiyone... Tenchi Universe?

Mixed continuities.  Bad habit of mine, I know.  ^_^;

  Bad author, no biscut! ;)

Eh? Angsting in the rain? And it's not Ranma?

   Mind... struggling... ;)

RyokoxRanma has been done, in many ways.  So have other crosses between
those series (like KasumixKiyone ^_^;).  I'm waiting to see a good
AyekaxKuno...or maybe AyekaxKodachi.  ^_^;;;

  Sorry, sorry... was just joking about all the scenes with Ranma angsting in the rain that spring to mind. :p

Well, there's always piracy, of course.

   One would think it was profitable, to some degree...

If there were any significant traffic around to pirate?  Sure.  But
Earth is a backwater, barely rating a GP presence.  Historically,
pirates preying on lightly traveled routes have either found richer
pastures, soon went out of business, or had some alternate source of
income that let them stay where they were.

  Insignificant trade...

  Ryouko: This 'Bill Gates' guy isn't even worth my time.

Besides, there's the little fact that Ryoko's home base is not that
far from the local GP "base".  Kinda puts a damper on what she can get
away with, no?  (And I believe Ryoko also claimed to be strictly "ex"
pirate at some point in the anime.  I forget where, though.)

  Which one? :p

  But then, in the OAVs, it's kind of hard to be a pirate when you're dead for 700 years.

  Not, of course, that I'm speaking from experience.

The first sentence is quite convoluted... I have trouble parsing it.

"Her customer trudged forward in the shadows" is convoluted?  Or did
you mean another sentence?

  Second sentance, sorry. Was actually that boggled. ^_^;;

  Remember, you know what it's supposed to look like, we don't always have this benefit. :p

She would not be here forever, yet she knew of no one else who would
deliver this type of cargo this far away from mainstream interstellar
civilization.  She wondered what the customer would do when that day
came...but that was her customer's problem, not hers.  And perhaps the
customer had solved it: the doses she delivered only lasted a few
months, yet it had been almost a year since her last delivery.  Nodding
in satisfaction as the familiar hand took the bag, tearing it slightly
as the bag hooked on the can's lid for a moment, and replaced it with a
bundle of fresh Juraian bank notes, she took the money and flew away.

   Is that last sentence a run-on? I'm not a good judge of that. :p

Borderline.  *Just* over three rows of text...

  Reason I asked was because it had two instances of 'as', which I think there's an obscure grammatical rule about, but all I can really say is that it looks a little confusing to me. :p

I thought this scene was from Kiyone's PoV?

Neutral omniscient observer's.  Keeping every scene to one character's
PoV can be counterproductive in some cases, though single-PoV
definitely has its uses (especially if writing a scene in the first
person).

  Dang. Every time I try and use 3rd person omniscient, someone tells me that it's not. :p

  Each PoV has its own advantages and disadvantages, though.

Must watch that movie.

<shrugs>  Kain: big bad evil mega-powerful villain.  Major trouble if
he shows up.  Member of Wannabe Evil Overlords Local 4387 - in bad
standing, of course (difficult to pay union fees when your assets have
been seized).  ^_-

  Guess I don't need to see it now. Pity, it's sitting on my desk at the moment, too. :p

"Oh."  He made no effort to hide his relief, though he did not expect
anyone to notice.  "So, what happens next?"

   I don't seem to remember a good reason why Tenchi would actually
care about that very much...

Care about Kane not being in orbit when he thought Kane was?  I can
think of many good reasons, minimization of risk to life and limb
among them.

  For some reason, I thought that Tenchi was concerned about the cube specifically.

  It makes sense, now that you've explained it, though.

Tenchi shrugged.  "No, not at all.  We've got plenty of room."

   Which leads me to think that since Noboyuki designed the house, he
MEANT Tenchi to somehow develop these women troubles.

   Meddling old man...

I've often wondered...though I think Noboyuki just imagined having a
large family - at first with Achika, later through his son.

  No, no... the collection of shoujo manga condems the man. Now we know the truth...

This rings more of OAV Washuu than TU Washuu, I think... but I like
OAV Washuu better anyway. :p

   'cept for the Washuu-bots. Gotta love the Washuu-bots.

Agreed on both counts.

  What's life like without the echoing cries of, "You're the greatest!"

As a side note... why is Kiyone so broken up over this? If the GP
are corrupt as Ayeka's report says they are, wouldn't she prefer a
peace-enforcing role somewhere more respectable anyway?

Kiyone's devoted her life to the GP, and only now has she found out
how much evil she's been helping.  If you just found out that your day
job, which you thought was as innocent as office work, was actually
manipulating the controls of machines that butchered and maimed
innocent millions, you'd feel a bit upset too, no?

  Yeah, but she knew about a lot of the corruption from the TU TVseries, didn't she?

  I mean, she spent most of the series as a fugitive, after all...

part experiment -- part-experiment (?)

   part mercy mission -- part-mercy-mission (?)

Umm, no.  Long-drawn-out-hyphenated-words-just-don't-work-that-well-in-
normal-text,-or-so-they-read-to-me.  More to the point, "part" is an
independent qualifier in both cases, while the hyphen indicates more
dependence...and "mercy mission" is definitely unhyphenated normally.

  Well, I qualified them with question marks because I was unsure. I'm still struggling with English, sorry. :/

Hmm... Mihoshi as a PI. There's a thought.

A scary thought.

  I should get a Sam Spade story and see about writing that thought into a fic...

Ayeka: That's nice, Tenchi. However, as I was saying, Father...

I see my intended effect came through loud and clear here.  ^_^

  Quite well.

Tenchi shook his head.  "What he said was GAAH!"

   Suggest a dash before the 'Gaah'.

That would imply Tenchi had at least a millisecond's warning in which
to pause his speech.

  I thought that the dash implied that the speech was effectively derailed?

"Tenchi!"  Ryoko smiled and hugged him, phasing him through Mihoshi's
grip, leaving the ex-detective to fall through where he had just been
and land on the ground nose first.  "I got all cold on the trip home.
What do you say we snuggle and warm up, hmm?"

   I thought she couldn't phase through living things?

She phases through herself and Ryo-ohki well enough.  Not to mention
trees (when they're not shocking her for getting near) and microbial
(and non-microbial) life underground...

  Well, yes, but we should treat this in the same reguard we treat normal sci-fi. Some of it doesn't make sense. :p

  Of course, it's a small enough point that it doesn't truly matter either way.

  And the Tenchi Muyo! RPG resource book says you're right anyway.

  Drat. Now I feel like an idiot. >_<

Hmm...

But note this is not actually a lemon.  ;P

  *sigh*

  Yeah, I did notice that.

  ... Um, I mean, well, I would _never_ read such a fic! Really!

And so the love I'm-not-sure-what-this-is-but-I-doubt-it's-a-regular-
polygon gains yet another side...

  I thought you didn't like overly long hyphenated phrases. :p

Suggest: drop the 'in the fireplace'.

Thought of that, but it looked to me too much like the fire could be
elsewhere.  Still, since you suggested it, I'll drop it.

  Where else would you keep a fire? ;)

pitch black -- pitch-black (?)

That would be a typo, IMO, and my spellchecker agrees.

  Mine doesn't. But then, it's probably about as prone to error as I am. :)

  Just note that I qualify things I'm not sure about appropriately.

Sure enough, with a blast of wind, a hyperspace portal appeared just
above the lake's surface, disgorging a sleek shuttle that Tenchi swore
he had seen in some science fiction movie two weeks ago.  The shuttle
gracefully but quickly hovered to dry land and set down...upside down.
A hatch on its side irised opened after a few minutes, out of which
tumbled Misaki, landing on her feet.

   That bit deserves more exposition, I think.

How so?  Any part in particular?

  I'm not certain how -- it just feels a little rushed as it is. :/

"No, really, mommy, it's-"

Sasami barely felt Mihoshi quickly pick her pocket, pulling out a
slightly ripped plastic bag with some white pills.

Misaki peered at the bag closely.  "Stims?"

   Geribaldi: Doc, I think you got a problem.

   Benjamin: Wrong series!

I'm not sure why, but some part of my brain insisted on "speedstims" up
until just before I put this out.  The extra syllable was entirely
redundant...

  Oh, wait...

  mommy -- Mommy (?)

I haven't seen that series, so it would explain why I'm having
trouble with the characterizations.

Mihoshi on the edge of drug withdrawal.  Deliberate OO-normal-C to
illustrate the point.

  It made much more sense later.

And are you sure you want to start that paragraph with 'Who'? It
seems a tad jarring...

Intentionally so, partly to highlight Kiyone's next statement.

  Aahh...

Kiyone instinctively put up her hands in a warding gesture, until
realizing that neither partner was looking at the other.  "Alright,
alright!  I'll at least get a bit of a nap tonight, and I won't act on
it until you're awake, ok?"

"...I suppose."

   Most of that scene went _way_ over my head.

Not sure how I could pare it down any.  Rereading it now, it looks
clear to me...but I have the disadvantage of knowing what I meant.  -_-

  It's just that they know what they're talking about, and you know what they're talking about, but I had to read it twice before I could figure it out.

  But I'm also notoriously slow-witted.

Kiyone popped open the attic window and crawled out onto the roof just
in time to almost collide with Tenchi.

   Ranma: Geez, you show up on a roof in a few frames, and suddenly
it's a trend...

Akane: Tell me about it.  At least Nabiki didn't blackmail *you* into
opening a "House of Hammers".

  Hehehe...

  To be fair, though, we see a few instances of roof-top meditations in Maison Ikkoku, and Love Hina. Probably more that I can't think of at the moment... Oh, yes, even Brigadoon. :p

Once Kiyone climbed up to the peak of the roof, onto which Ryoko had
added a board so two people could lay comfortably head to head, Ryoko
whispered, "Good call and thank you.  Telling him would've just given
him nightmares."

   call and thank -- call, and thank (?)

Possible, but no.  Replaying the scene in my mind, Ryoko does not pause
there, as would be indicated by a comma.  (One of those "story writes
itself" bits.)

  Yes, grammatical errors are acceptably for dialogue (I pay a lot of attention to speech patterns in an attempt to capture them), I just wasn't certain if that one was intentional.

"Because she's going to fixate on either you or Tenchi, and Tenchi is
*mine*."

   Hah!

<shrugs>  That's Ryoko's opinion.  Elimination of a rival is
elimination of a rival, regardless of whether bloodshed is involved.

  Well, it works, but it amuses me, too. :p

Is this a reference to another fic?

Not that I know of.  Though it might make for an interesting alt-verse.

  Not to be written by me. ;)

Who's PoV is this scene from?

Again, neutral omniscient observer.

  I must learn to write in that style.

"Within the past hour, what looked like an alien spaceship appeared over
the capitol buildings in Sydney, Capetown, Washington D.C., London,
Berlin, Moscow, New Dehli, Beijing, and Tokyo.  At each location, it
burned a message into the ground nearby with some kind of high-powered
laser, then disappeared.  At Washington and Moscow, guards managed to
fire a few shots before the ship vanished, but by all accounts they
inflicted no visible damage."  The camera angle shifted, showing some
kanji in a taped-off area next to the Diet with police keeping crowds of
onlookers back.  "The message in each city, aside from being in the
local language, was the same: 'Earth is not alone'.

   What camera angle?

Hmm.  I meant the inclusion of that, in that context, to imply that
this was televised news coverage without having to explicitly exposit
that.

  It is, but it's probably more jarring than you intended.... though it could just be me.

And I thought the Diet was a government body, not a building. But I
could be wrong. :p

There's also a "Diet Building" in which they meet, so it's effectively
both.  Similarly, "Congress" refers both to the US's representatives,
senators, and their staffs, and to the building in which they meet.

  I never knew that. They say you learn something new every day, though.

Is 'addicted' the right word? 'Obsessed,' maybe?

Close enough.  And 'addiction' further implies an inability to stop.

  'addicted' sounds very organic, and somwhat jarring, though.

Misaki: Yes, but you uploaded it to a free web-page. Who's going to
download the secrets of the universe when they have to deal with pop-ups?

I would.  But then, I do emulate Washu-chan in RL a bit.  (But only in
the quest for knowledge role...and again, only a bit.)  ^_^

  Admittedly, so would I.

Kiyone: ... Dang! Knew I missed that one.

Kiyone: Oh, well, I can still jam the satellite channels and broadcast
the file that way.

  User: Don't want secrets of the universe! Want Quake! Egads, woman, what you've _done_ to my ping!

Don't sell yourself short.  Humor wasn't as much of a purpose there as
characterization...even if the character trait itself is humorous in
that regard.

  Well, I hope that the C&C is helpfull, then.

The Yagami has a transporter? I thought only Juraian tree-ships had
those.

I'm pretty sure the Yagami demonstrated it in one of the early TM TV
episodes.  Plus, there's the little matter of how they got the house on
and off the Yagami in the second half of that continuity - they didn't
appear to load it by hand, even when it was small.

  True enough.

Hey, the Galactic Network uses IP v. 6?

Internet Protocol to Galactic Protocol bridge.  Writing a program to
translate from one designed-for-computer format to another usually
isn't too hard, if you know both formats beforehand and they contain
similar data types.

  Do you know Galactic Protocol? I could slap together some hardware, if you can manage the software aspects. :p

Intersting story, at least, though the characters felt very
unfamiliar to me. I hope this C&C is adequate apology for misspelling
your name. :p

Already forgiven.  ^_^

  Drat. Now I need a new excuse to C&C.