On Monday, September 17, 2001, at 03:02  AM, Brian Randall wrote:

Stephen Pardue wrote:

Skuld nodded furiously. "She's a real macho tomboy. Talks like a boy and
everything!" She leaned closer to Urd, speaking conspiratorially. "She
even has a... a girlfriend!"

   conspiratorially. "She -- conspiratorially, "She (?)

I think this could go either way grammatically. I think I'll leave it as is, for now. I tried to reword it, but I like it this way, I think.

It was true, Urd supposed, that not every aspect of being a goddess was
wonderful. Sure you had amazing powers, and of course you got to set
your own hours, but then again, you were on call 24/7/365 for all
eternity. It was no wonder she was driven to drink But then again, every
now and then a situation like this came up that made it all worthwhile.

   Doesn't being on-call for eternity preclede making your own hours? :p

Well, with Urd, its more like 24 hours a month, 7 months a year, 365 years a millennia :)

To help someone find their true love,  no matter what form that love
took, was always an amazing experience. Urd lived for it; had made it
her life's work. Even if she really was the goddess of the Past, her
true avocation was as the goddess of love; red silk sheets, skimpy
bathing suits  and all. So once she had heard Skuld's story, there was
no chance that she would simply ignore her sister's plea and return to
sleep. She simply had to help this poor victim of Skuld's.

   First line -- looks like there's an extra space after the first comma.

   And again after 'bathing suits'.

   Repetition of 'simply'. Perhaps replace one instance with, 'just'?

Good call.

Standing before her laboratory table, she considered the two questions
before her. First, she had to locate the girl, and then she had to find
a way to restore her male form. The first was a snap.  Digging her
keyboard out from under a pile of personal adds, she turned on her
terminal and composed a quick e-mail.

   Doesn't she need to know about the spells involved, too?

Well, I just assumed that since she's doing this to save Skuld's skin,Skuld would have filled her in on the details of what she did. Of course, neither one of them has actually bothered to look at Ranma's file and see that he's a guy :) I'll see about working in bit about this.

  To: oracle@cs.indiana.edu From: urd@yggdrasdil.hvn

  Oh Oracle most wise, how's it hanging?

  Could you do me a teensy, little favor? I need to know today's
  itinerary for a mortal by the name of Ranma Saotome (obj ref
  021AF45C:002444A1). More detail would be great, but just her location
  will do. Don't forget to give me the coordinates of any televisions as
  well.

  Urd

  P.S.: Sorry about the woodchuck and whipped cream thing at the
  last office party. Hope you're feeling better and the stitches are out.

   People with MAC addresses. Heh.

   Oh, and the woodchuck bit is funny, too. :p

Some people may not realize that the Usenet Oracle (now the Internet Oracle) really exists!
You can visit him on the web at http://cgi.cs.indiana.edu/~oracle/index.cgi and ask him
your own troubling questions.

The real problem was that Ranma could not be allowed to know that a
goddess was around, much less fixing her curse. That would be bad,
because there was no way the system auditor would miss that. A covert
operation was what she needed, one where she could be in and out without
Ranma and her girlfriend suspecting anything.

   Tsk... Urd, should have done a more thorough background check.

Like all overworked programmers, she's just fixing the problem report, not the problem :)

Focusing her mind, she summoned her will and began to cast her spell:

        Spirits, hear me and obey!

        Shape this cloth into a form pleasing to behold;
            Ward it well against those who would harm its wearer.

        Weave into it the the strength of the dragon which
            adorns it; And bind it to my bidding!

        I, Urd, command thee!

   Are the capitals trailing the semicolons intentional?

Originally I had the first word of each line capitalized, but when I blocked the story with VIM, it mangled my indentations. I never noticed it before, I'll have to fix it.

On the other hand, Ryouga, Shampoo, Mousse --  even her old man, for
that matter --  had never had their curses locked out of the blue like
this. Akane kept acting like it was no big deal; just wait a few days
and it'll fix itself. Ranma wasn't so sure, but she was interested in
checking out this temple. Who knew what old scroll or spirit could be
hidden away in there, after all these years. If she could only get Akane
to stop shopping and start walking!

   Well, Ryouga and Mousse did in the Herb arc, but that didn't last very long.

Oops. Forgot about that. I'll reword this paragraph.

Urd reached into a rack and pulled out a Chinese shirt similar to the
ones Ranma usually wore, except that it seemed to be more - real. Imbued
with some sort of life of it's own. "Perhaps, something like this?"

   The description's a little stilted here... :/

Yes, I'll work it over some more. I really need to get a better mental image of it.

"I think that Shampoo chooses her clothes with something other than
fighting in mind."

   Is that harshness characteristic of Akane? Seems a fairly unkind thing for her to say, since she's generally one of the nicer (friendlier) characters in the manga towards pretty much everyone.

I meant this to be more sarcastic than harsh, I'll have to think this over.

   Interesting.

   Well, I'd certainly like to see more of this one, Mr. Pardue!

I'll try to take less than 2 1/2 years for the next chapter. I've set a goal of 18 months for it.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Steve Pardue
steve@spardue.org
http://www.spardue.org/anime
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