----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Kleppe" <gary@garykleppe.org>
To: "Dave Menard" <menard5078@rogers.com>
Cc: <ffml@anifics.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2001 3:09 PM
Subject: [FFML] Re: [Ranma/DC Comics][xover]"When Titans Clash" Prt 1 of 2

Catching up on my C&C. You know the drill: adopt what you find useful,
file the rest under one reader's opinionated view. :)

    Will do!

"Dave Menard" <menard5078@rogers.com> wrote:

Professor Ohta nodded and left the screening room, visions of  Nobel

Prizes

dancing in his head, leaving his Chairwoman to review the footage.

Used as a description (as opposed to a name, e.g. "Yes, Chairwoman"),
"chairwoman" probably shouldn't be capitalized.

    Right, gotcha.

She tapped a manicured fingernail against her teeth as she pondered the
mystery in front of her. "I'm intimately familiar with every form of
photonic emission known to science, yet whatever it is you're producing

with

that "Moko Takabisha" of yours..."

that 'Moko Takabisha' of yours....

Use single quotes for quotes within quotes, and don't put an ending
quote since Kimi is still speaking at the beginning of the next
paragraph. (The opening quote mark for that next paragraph should stay,
however.)

    Gotcha. Will change.

"What _are_ you, Ranma Saotome?"

RANMA: A guy!

KIMI: I see. I was misled by the fact that you had breasts, I guess.

"Aw, man," Ranma Saotome groaned as he examined the latest missive from
S.T.A.R. Labs. "Don't these morons know the meanin' of the word 'no'?"

OHTA: No.

The exclamation drew Nabiki's eyes away from the Nikkei Index scroll by

on

scroll-by

    Weird. My spell-checker nailed me both ways. Oh, well. Will change.

"Ah, it's just these numbskulls again. For a buncha scientists, they're
pretty dense." He shook the letter in disgust. "Like I don't know why

they

wanna have me in fer testin'. Ain't no way I'm gonna spend even a _day_
bein' poked an' prodded by a buncha eggheads who wanna figure out how my
curse works."

This misunderstanding might be a good source of humor, if you can work
it in somewhere.

    Plan on it, though not for a while.

"One hundred thou-sand..." a whispery voice called from the wastebasket.

"I'm not listen-ing," Nabiki sang. "There are _some_ things I won't

stoop

to for money."

NABBY: And the garbage pail is one of them!

Nabby trying to give up money-grubbing is funny, but I don't see why the
wedding would be that big a deal to her. It's just not that much
different or more serious than a lot of the stuff that went on before
it. This bit can work well, IMO, if you come up with a stronger
motivation for her to be doing this.

    What would you suggest? I figured the results of the wedding debacle
might have given her pause, but... Maybe a return of Kinnosuke making her
realize how obsessive she was getting... I'll take any suggestions you might
have.

"One hundred thousand ye-en..." the little voice cooed.

Soun and Genma peered around the shoji door that separated the porch

from

the living room, blinking in astonishment at the sight of the middle

Tendo

daughter covering her ears and dancing around in a circle, singing
"Lalalalalalalalalalala... I'm not listening to the wastebasket,
lalalalalalalala..."

Heh.

"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm," Soun nodded. Then, suddenly, he burst into tears. "My
middle daughter's gone completely bananas! Waaah!!!"

Kasumi appeared with some nice soothing tea, (the special kind she kept

on

hand for her dear father, the kind spiked with Prozac) and peace once

again

reigned, however briefly.

Dunno if these last couple paragraphs really add anything to the joke,
and the Prozac thing seems rather cliched, IMO.

    Hmm. It just seemed to be dangling there, but I'll give it a try without
the final G/S bit.

The phone in Professor Ohta's office rang, startling the scientist into
checking the 'yes' box on the release form for metahuman test subject
#08967, rather than the 'no way in hell' box as he'd intended. His

mistake

went unnoticed as he absently tossed the paper into his outbox and picked

up

the receiver.

"Moshi-moshi, Ohta-Hakase desu."

VOICE ON PHONE: Hello, Professor. This is the League Against Gratuitous
Fanfic Japanese calling. And not a moment too soon, it seems.

No, seriously, this would make sense if a JLAer was calling and he
switched to English after saying this line, but that obviously isn't the
case here. If you're going to render the remaining Japanese in this
scene into English, why not this line as well?

    Yeah, you're right. <sigh> Every time I try to drop it, it just sneaks
back in!!

"But Dr. Hoshi, it's the only way Saotome will agree to come in for

tests!"

 "But, Dr. Hoshi,

Kimiko groaned and buried her face in her hands. "I sincerely doubt it."

Different name for her than you used before.

    Should have been Kimiyo all the way through. My bad. (I'll blame Ling. I
was re-reading "Fragments" just before I started writing this... ~_^) <Dave
looks around for "find and replace" command...>

"West residence, oh, hiya Kimiyo, long time no talk-to. Yeah, the

wedding

hiya, Kimiyo,

was great, I'll run you over some pix. So, what's up?"

Silence. Then: "You're kidding, right? A sixteen-year-old kid? No

thanks,

I've got enough problems with teenagers dealing with Bart. Sorry."

Again, since he's still talking at the start of the next paragraph,
don't put a quote mark at the end of this one. (Look for this
elsewhere.)

    Shall do. I _always_ screw that up.

"Listen Mark, I'll have the pages to you Wednesday, I _swear_, I... Huh?

"Listen, Mark,

"Come out to Japan? Hell, YEAH! Is Komike on right now? That'd be so

cool!

I gotta meet Shirow, d'you think you can arrange it? No, huh? Well, you

know

_anyone_ in the biz? Yeah, okay, what's _he_ draw? The Dr. Light manga?

No

thanks."

A green finger pushed the disconnect button.

Seems a bit unnecessarily rude for him... couldn't he say something like
"I'll be there if I can manage to get away," or some other of those
answers that mean "no" in Japanese? :)

    Good idea. Howabout "I'll try to fit it into my schedule," if there's no
good re-runs on T.V., he finished silently.

"Mail call,"  Nabiki trilled, a smile in her voice. A nice fat envelope

>from S.T.A.R. Labs addressed to Tendo Incorporated, and another one

She's incorporated, but doesn't use a P.O. Box? ^_^;;

    D'oh. Will fix.

"What is it, boy?" Genma asked, peering over his son's should at the
letter.

"These buttheads are _challengin'_ me!"

OHTA: Huh huh we're gonna kick your ass, huh huh huh I said "ass."

"What? Let me see that, boy," Genma cried, snatching the letter from his
hands. "'S.T.A.R. Labs, yadda yadda yadda... 'Challenges Ranma Saotome of

"'S.T.A.R. Labs,' yadda yadda yadda... 'challenges

(Caps, and missing ')

    Missing ' I can see, but which caps? On "yadda" or "challenges"? Or
both?

"Take a look at the terms, Pop," Ranma frowned.

terms, Pop." Ranma

(He isn't frowning the line of dialog, only frowning, so the dialog is a
separate sentence.)

    Ri-ight. Will fix.

"'If they should lose, Ranma Saotome shall agree to allow the scientists

of

S.T.A.R. Labs to perform the following experiments outlined hereafter,

yadda

yadda yadda... If he should defeat our champions S.T.A.R. Labs agrees to

Again, the yaddas should probably be outside the single quotes, since
they aren't directly lifted from the letter.

outlined hereafter,' yadda yadda yadda... 'If

    You meant inside the single quotes, right?

"P-chan, wait, where are you going?" Akane called, but too late. The

tiny

porker had disappeared towards the kitchen.

Seconds later, Ryoga Hibiki appeared in a cloud of steam.

"Ranma! How dare you insult Akane like that! I should beat you within an
inch of your life!"

Since you've set this story after the vol. 38 wedding, shouldn't he be
off at Akari's place (or looking for it?) You might want to make a brief
mention of why he's still playing P-chan.

    I thought about it, but it seemed kinda superfluous, since it doesn't
really impact on the story.  Maybe I'll just mention that P-chan looks
uncomfortable being cuddled, or something to that effect.

"What's the big deal?" Lil' Lobo asked around a mouth full of Slim Jims.

Shouldn't that be Li'l, the contraction of "Little?" For contractions,
the apostrophe goes where there are missing letters, which here is the
double t; the e on the end doesn't count since it's silent anyhow.

    I'm just writing it the way the DC letterers do, IIRC. (check issues of
YJ) D'oh. I do _not_ recall correctly. Got it mixed up with "Lil' Archie"...
Will fix.

Finally, Wonder Girl gave in to the urge. "What the heck are you talking
about, speedy?"

Bart, a.k.a. Impulse disappeared in a flash (whoops, pun!) only to

reappear

Gack. Couldn't one of the characters make this joke? Talking directly to
the readers is a good way to jolt them out of the story.

    I suppose. Personally, I don't find it that jarring in a comedic piece
(Thinking of R.J. Haynie's "Girl Days", in particular) so long as it's not
done to excess. I don't _think_ I've done it to excess, so I'll keep it.
Thanks for the heads-up, though. I _try_ not to irritate my potential
audience...

Sadly, the ancient Oriental art of sweatdropping isn't taught to

westerners

either, else the Young Justice team would have been doing it like crazy.

Might just be a personal stylistic preference, but I think the
references to facefaulting and sweatdropping might be better talked
about through Bart's POV, him being the one present who knows what those
things are. I can generally get into the story better through the
thoughts of a character.

    See above, more or less. It's not the sort of thing I try to do in a
serious piece, but in a silly, supposed-to-be-funny piece like this, I feel
comfortable using "To sweatdrop" and "To facefault" as verbs. If it helps, I
understand what you're saying, but I honestly can't think of another way to
phrase the joke without making it more awkward...

"Ranchan, hey, wait up Ranchan," Ukyo called as she jogged up to join

Ranma

wait up, Ranchan,"

    Right, gotcha. Will change.

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Lemme guess. You heard from Nabiki, right?" Ukyo
nodded, earning a groan from Ranma. "I don't _need_ any seconds, the

letter

just said I could bring up to seven if I _wanted_. S'bad enough I gotta

be

saddled with Pig-boy and Gorilla-girl here-" He ducked as Akane swung her
bookbag at his head, "I don't need no more 'help'."

head. "I

    No comma there? I'll take your word for it, but why? (Bear in mind that
English isn't my first language. Sometimes it shows that I've had little
English grammar education.)

"Aw, Ranma-honey," Ukyo smiled cutely. "What kind of fiancee would I be

if

"Aw, Ranma-honey." Ukyo

    See above question.

I didn't stand by my man in his time of need? You can count on me,

sugar!"

RANMA: Funny, I don't remember you standing by me during that last big
battle against Saffron.

UKYO: I had a dentist's appointment that day, hon.

RANMA: Not to mention against Herb...

UKYO: Had to go mail a letter.

RANMA: ... or Pantyhose...

UKYO: Obscure religious holiday.

RANMA: ... or...

    UKYO: Awright, already! You want the truth? Takahashi-sensei got bored
with me after the Tako-Balls-guy story arc! Didn't you _notice_ I wasn't
around as much as before?

    RANMA: Actually, I was enjoying the peace and quiet. Not to mention a
fella can only east so much okonomiyaki before he gets sick of it...

    UKYO: BLASPHEMER! (Whips out mega-spat and sets to with great fury.)

"Shampoo bring Airen too-too delicious lunch," the violet-tressed Amazon
intoned seriously. "It ancient 3000-year-old recipe for stanim- stamim-
stummin-"

"Stamina?" Akane asked, monotone.

SHAMPOO: No, stammering. I try- try myself, make sure wor- wor- works.

    BA-dum-bum. <crash!> Thank you! I'm here all week! Try the mutton!

"Well, that makes four," Akane counted. "You may as well ask Mousse,

too.

He's right over there," she pointed. Sure enough-

He's right over there." She pointed.

(Again, what did she point? Not the words "He's right over there." So
that line of dialog is a separate sentence from the pointing.)

    Ah, so _that's_ the deciding factor?

"SAOTOME! How dare you refuse to eat the meal Shampoo made for you with

her

loving hands! You dog! DIE!"

Then, suddenly, from the schoolyard-

"SAOTOME, YOU WRETCH! How DARE you embroil the fair Akane Tendo in some
sordid duel with mere scientists! I shall smite you with the wrath of

heaven

itself!!"

While admittedly neither of these guys is exactly a model of stability,
I don't see much reason for either of them to fly off the handle in this
situation. More likely they'd glomp their respective lady loves (or, in
Mousse's case, any conveniently-placed person or object) and pledge to
assist them in their hour of need.

    Mousse glomping a convenient lamppost, okay, that works. I can't really
see Ryoga glomping Akane under _any_ circumstances. I think I can tweak the
paragraph appropriately, though.

Arrowette tapped Robin on the shoulder. "Um, Robin? Suzie and I were
talking, and it occurred to us... Does anyone here speak Japanese?"

ROBIN: Yes, I think pretty much all of the locals here do.

    I wasn't aware of any locals in the middle of the Pacific Ocean...

Bart looked up from Supersonic Mario Planet. "Hey Rob, do you have a

"Hey, Rob,

No, but the 'Cycle did. Robin handed the volume over to Bart with a

puzzled

look, then watched in amazement as the teen speedster flipped through the
pages in the blink of an eye. "Okay, got it," Bart said, handing the book
back and returning to his games.

That may allow him to learn all the words, assuming his memory is good
enough. There's still the little problem of getting them in the right
order. ^_^;;

    I know that, you know that, Robin probably knows that. Bart wouldn't
even think of it. Planned comic relief moment in the tale ahead hinges on
it.

It might be funny for them to not think of this until they got into a
situation where they needed to be able to speak the language (having to
ask directions, maybe); then they can offer these suggestions, none of
which work until they think of the boxes.

    Good idea! I'll work it in.

"Yo," Superboy called, flying down to hover about a foot off the ground

in

front of the startled martial artists. "Konnichiwa. Which one'a you guys

is

Ranma Saotome?"

Aw, you're not gonna have Ranma in girl form for this? I wanna see
Superboy try to put the moves on him. :)

    Will happen, just not yet.

It was a good thing Superboy's stable of powers didn't included

didn't include

    Yeah, I know. Spotted that sucker right after I hit "send" on my
e-mailer. D'oh.

super-hearing, as his already titanic ego would have swelled even

further.

The rest of Young justice disembarked the Super-Cycle to cheers and

Young Justice (caps)

    Whoops.

applause. Arrowette and Wonder Gril took a moment to wave to the crowd,

Girl

UKYO: I'm the one with the Wonder Grill, hon.

    Yurk. Will change.

Ranma Vs. Impulse
Akane Vs. Secret
Kuno Vs. Robin
Ukyo Vs. Arrowette
Mousse Vs. Superboy
Shampoo Vs. Wonder Girl
Ryoga Vs. Lil' Lobo

No need to capitalize "vs." (an abbreviation for "versus"). Perhaps one
of the characters could make this announcement, to keep the revealing of
it more within the story?

    Hmm... I'll see what I can do.

The opponents faced each other across the centre line of the Furinkan
soccer field. Nabiki made sure that her henchwomen were circulating

amongst

the growing crowd collecting bets on the outcome. No matter which side

won,

Nabiki knew she'd make a fortune. Hometown heroes versus Junior Justice
Leaguers. It was a bookmaker's dream come true!

Um... why? Unless she's planning on stiffing the winning betters (which
doesn't seem like her style), what's to stop her from losing her
proverbial shirt if everyone picks correctly? The only way I can see her
doing this is if she has some sort of inside information on the fight,
which (considering that the outcome is going to be determined by reader
vote) seems unlikely. Unless she's got some sort of ace in the hole
here, I'd suggest just dropping this bit. Nabsy's already been paid, and
(that one scene which was only in the anime notwithstanding) her
moneymaking schemes tend to be more personal, more geared towards taking
advantage of her targets' psychological limitations, and leave much less
to chance.

    I can drop it, no sweat.

Principal Kuno, lured from his Tiki hut by the promise of seeing his

hero

Superboy in person, agreed to referee. He mosied out onto the field,
grinning like an idiot, which he was.

Now, now... is it really your omniscient narrator's place to take this
kind of dig at a character? Seems like you could just as easily have had
one of the characters make this joke.

    I can't help it! It's like the damn ellipsises! They just keep crawling
in!

"All righty keiki, dis' gonna be a fair fight, dig? No-boddy be

interferin'

in no-boddy else fight, or dey gonna gets a haircut, dig?"

"Dig?" Oh no, the Principal's gone hippy! :)

PRINCIPAL: Like, fah out, man.

    Wouldn't that be "fah out, mon?" Or is that too Jamaican?

He brandished his
shears gleefully, fully expecting to be able to add some celebrity hair

to

his collection. That Impulse boy ALONE...

Given that he's declaring a punishment for cheating, I'd expect da
kahuna to have some traps or something set up to try to force a
situation where some of the characters will end up cheating. Like
Nabiki, he tends not to leave things to chance, and it's more fun that
way anyhow.

    Heheheheheh... You are wise in the ways of Da Kahuna.

Here's the fun audience participation bit. Write me (privately) and tell

me

who you think would win each fight and why, assuming all goes according

to

the rules.

Given the circumstances, a rather dubious assumption. :)

Despite all these nitpicks, this was quite a fun read, and for the most
part you seem to have a good handle on the characters. I've never read
Young Justice, but I was able to mostly pick up who was who fairly
easily. Looking forward to seeing the conclusion.

    Glad you enjoyed it. For the most part I agree with your nit-picking, so
'twas not in vain. The conclusion should surface on or before Wednesday.


Dave Menard

You're the cutest of the Scoobies,
With your lips as red as rubies,
And your firm and supple... tight embrace!
-Xander, BTVS "Once More With Feeling"

Dawn's in danger? Oh. It must be Tuesday.
-Buffy, BTVS "Once More With Feeling"

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