Sorry this response is so late. I've been laz-- er, busy. :) Hope it's
still of some use.

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

Here's how the voting came down. In the case of a draw, or no clear choice
made, I considered it a spoiled ballot for the purposes of the total.

You might want to put this stuff at the end. It's a major story spoiler
if the battle outcomes in the story are going to follow the votes, and
even if not, long author's pre-notes tend to turn off impatient readers
who want to get to the story. :)

Certain things are next to impossible to describe; the kind of things you
desperately try to relate to a friend at some later date, only to be met
with a blank, uncomprehending stare. You're eventually forced to fall back
on saying, "You had to be there." The battle between Nerima's finest and the
teenage Superhero team known as Young Justice was one of those things.
Still, this humble scribe will hereby attempt to render it, despite the
limitations imposed by a non-visual medium.

Okay, I'm gonna try not to harp on the talking directly to the readers
thing, as you seem to have made a stylistic choice in favor of it. But
this just reads like hype for your fic. You probably didn't intend it
that way, but your narrator is effectively telling us what a great story
this is going to be, and frankly that puts me off a bit. Just show us
your story, and we'll decide how marvelous and exciting it is. It's
especially wrong for this story, IMO. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's
been a fun read so far, but c'mon, Waters Under Earth it ain't. It's a
superheroes vs. martial artists battle, f'cryinoutloud. Not terribly
hard to describe compared to a lot of other things you could be writing,
especially from a detached omniscient POV.

3. Nabiki Tendo heard the sound of a thousand cash registers simultaneously
going -cha-ching- as she observed the fight through the viewfinder of her
camcorder.

Um, why? I thought you said the betting thing was taken out. Is she
planning to sell the video? Nabiki doesn't always *have* to have a
money-making angle; there's lots of times in the manga where she just
watches things for her own amusement.

4. Headmaster Kuno was driven like a tent-peg into the ground as Li'l Lobo
stomped on him in his eagerness to reach his opponent.

Suggest:

A foot drove Headmaster Kuno

or

A sudden impact drove Headmaster Kuno

or something like that. Try to avoid the passive.

"Damn, you're just pointy at both ends, aren't ya, Specs?" Superboy taunted
as he flew sideways, allowing Mousse to shoot past him, ploughing up a good
chunk of turf as he hit the ground.

plowing (?) This might just be a US/Canada language difference.

"Oh I _know_ you didn't just say I was at your mercy. How clich�'d can you

cliched

(Use ' only for possessives and contractions, and suggest avoiding the
accented characters as they aren't platform-independent.)

"So who are you supposed to be, then? 'Spatula-Lass'?" Arrowette called
back, simultaneously unloading a boxing-glove-tipped arrow, one that Ukyo
recognised as being another explosive-tipped arrow, and a third with an odd

Suggest:

as being another explosive-tipped one,

or some such. That it's an arrow is already clear.

crook in the middle that somehow flew straight nonetheless. "S'that some

'ETTE: Yes, it's my Clyde Barrow arrow!

CLYDE: I'm not *that* odd.

"This?" Ukyo batted aside, blocked and ducked under each arrow,
respectively. "This is pure skill, hon," she grinned. Then yelped as the

skill, hon." She grinned, then yelped as

or

skill, hon." She grinned. Then she yelped as

(The action of grinning is separate from her speaking the line of
dialog, so it's a separate sentence, and "yelped" needs a subject if you
want to make it a separate sentence.)

Akane couldn't help it. The little blonde girl looked so sweet and
harmless. She'd seen television footage of most of the others in action
before, but never the little blonde waif. She reminded her of her "sister",
Kurumi. "Hi there, my name's Akane, what's yours?"

"Hi there. My name's Akane. What's yours?"

(As written it's a run-on, and if she's patronizing the girl, it's
appropriate for her to use short sentences anyway. ^_^)

"Okay," Secret smiled. "Let the best girl win."

"Okay." Secret

(Again, she isn't smiling the word "okay," just smiling.)

"Right," Akane nodded, snapping into a hard defensive stance. Secret

"Right." Akane

(And again here.)

hovered in place atop a tiny nimbus of smoke, arms behind her back and
smiling.

AKANE: Your arms are smiling? Stop that! That's not anatomically
possible!

Akane's eyes began to cloud with tears. For the first time since they'd
met, Ranma actually _needed_ her help, and she couldn't give it! She could
just hear him now: *Akane, you're useless. Ya can't even beat some little
girl. I don't wanna marry a weenie like you, so I'm gonna go off an' have
hot, sweaty sex with Ukyo an' Shampoo an' Kodachi an', _heck_ why not? I
think I'll boff that hot lookin' chick with the arrows while I'm at it.
Nyeah.*

I really like your treatment of Akane. You've avoided both extremes to
show us a likeable but imperfect character. (Even if you did have to
stick in a reference to OAV continuity. Bleah. ^_^)

"Who da Main Man?!" He yelled to the crowd, flexing a bicep and kissing it
for the ladies. "_I'm_ da Main Man!" He felt a tap on his shoulder. "Huh?"

ROBIN: It's me. Just came to tell you that the water main needs fixing
again.

LOBO: Why ya tellin' me? Call the mai... um, right. I'll get on it right
after this fight.

"It's rude to turn your back on an opponent," Ryoga growled, knuckles
cracking. "Not to mention stupid!" He delivered a vicious haymaker of his
own, sending Lobo arcing back a good dozen yards. Unlike his foe, he charged
forward, a barrage of bandanna-shuriken preceding him as he used his free

Actually, the multiple bandanna thing only worked in that initial fight
against Ranma, and he never used it again after that.

Ryoga popped his steel-lined umbrella open for use as a shield, but the
alien tore through it like it was made of paper. He deflected the attempted

like it were made
("Were" is used rather than "was" or "is" when speaking hypothetically.
Just one of those weird grammar rules that doesn't even apply to any
other verb.)

"Yer so fraggin' outclassed it's painful, buddy," Lobo grinned, delivering

painful, buddy." Lobo grinned, delivering
(see above)

Li'l Lobo coughed, exhaling a tiny puff of smoke. His clothes were in
tatters, his leathers blown to smithereens. His hair bore a marked
resemblance to that of a Dragonball Z character's, as it stood straight back

to that of a Dragonball Z character, as

or

to a Dragonball Z character's, as

>from his head at a 110 degree angle,  sizzling slightly. He blinked once,

Suggest: at a hundred and ten degree

"Would'ja just hold still an' let me hit ya?" Ranma snarled, throwing
another futile jab-jab-spin-kick combination at the human whirlwind that was
Impulse, who simply wasn't there whenever a fist or foot was supposed to
land.


"Naw,thatwouldn'tbeverysmart.MaxwouldbeprettyupsetifIdidthat.Say,that'sprett
yneat.Whydoyoucallitthechestnutfist?Idon'tseeanychestnutshere.Didyouwantsome
?'CauseIcouldgogetsomeifyawant,it'snotrouble,really..."

You've got a double line space between these paragraphs that looks
unintended.

Impulse continued to literally run circles around the pigtailed martial
artist, babbling all the while.
"IsthechestnutthingsortalikeJesseQuick'sspeedformula?'CauseMaxsaysthat'sabig
ol'cheatandthatJessean'herDad(he'sdeadbytheway)can'tgetpasttheirmentalblocka
boutusin'theirspeedwithoutsayingit.Ikindathinkhe'sright,'causeitdoesn'tdoany
thingforme.3X2(9YZ)4A!See,doesn'tmakemeanyfasteratall.Here,letmetrysomethin'
.KACHUTENSHINAMAGURIKEN!

Missing an end quote mark.

Ranma, seemingly forgotten in Impulse's glee at copying his technique,
winced as he found his feet. "Geez, it's like fightin' Copycat Ken all over
again. All the skills in the world ain't gonna do me much good against a kid
who can dodge or copy 'most anythin' I throw at him..."

And now we're in TV continuity. Bleh. :) (Just a personal bias on my
part, so you probably shouldn't worry about it.)

Ranma gritted his teeth, but continued anyway. "Betcha can't do _this_,"
Ranma snarled, summoning the Soul of Ice technique and causing the ambient
temperature in a two-meter radius to drop ten degrees.

Does the SoI really have that noticeable an effect? Can't remember it
doing so.

Ranma continued to project his cold ki outwards, a refinement of the Soul
of Ice he had first used against Saffron.

He was using the one of the Phoenix artifact thingies then to generate
the cold, if I remember right.

Flash Fact: Speedsters draw their abilities from the Speed Force, a
quasi-sentient energy field that exists just beyond the lightspeed barrier.
Like a certain other Force, it surround and infuses those who wield it,

surrounds

Ranma, of course, had no way of knowing this.

* * *

Don't think you need the scene break there.

Ranma Fact: the Hiryu Shoten Ha is an Amazon martial technique that uses
the "hot" ki of one's opponent against them.

of one's opponent against him.

or

of one's opponents against them.

Like metaphorical storm fronts,
the "hot" and "cold" ki-auras generated by the combatants combine

Like storm fronts, the "hot" and "cold" ki-auras generated

or

The metaphorical storm fronts generated

(Like metaphorical storm fronts means that they're like something else
that is a metaphor for storm fronts; one step further removed than what
you obviously intend.)

While the Speed Force isn't the same thing as ki, it is nevertheless a form
of energy. Volatile energy, as Wally West (The current Flash) could tell

West (the current

"<If you really _are_ an Amazon, you'll know the Secret Handshake,>"
Shampoo stated, extending her hand to the American girl.

I stopped reading Wonder Woman when Perez stopped writing it. It sounds
like Amazon culture's changed a bit since then. ^_^

Seriously, the humor in this falls rather flat for me, just because a
handshake is such a completely un-Amazonish gesture. Maybe you could
come up with someting with a flavor that's more along the lines of what
we've seen for the Amazons (in either series)?

Wonder girl began to sweat as she racked her brain. Diana had shown it to
her, but... "Uh, like this?" she clutched Shampoo's offered hand in a

She clutched (Caps, as it's a new sentence)

complicated sequence of grips that finished with the pair gripping each

Might want to reword out the repetition of "grip."

He drew his collapsible Bo staff and made a few tentative thrusts forward,
only to have each turned aside. Closing for a hand to hand assault gained
him nothing but a series of clouts to the head that he _knew_ must be

Suggest: that he _knew_ had to be

swelling up into fairly impressive knots.

"Ha! Foolish gaijin dog!" Kuno declaimed, holding his wooden bokken in a
ready position, "No mere practitioner of the dark arts of ninjitsu can

position. "No

defeat the Blue Thunder! Your very garb reveals your base and unholy
nature!"

ROBIN: Hey! I'm the first and only Robin to actually wear PANTS! What
more d'ya want?

Due to some rather... unorthodox... training the previous August, Tatewaki
Kuno gained another permanent fixture to his Enemies List. The results of

Kuno had gained

Robin needed all his skill with the Bo, as well as every once of gymnastic

ounce

ability the Dark Knight had taught him, just to stay clear of the thrusts.

"Why-" dodge, parry, "Does everyone assume-" block, block, parry, "That I'm

Again, the punctuation is messed up here. Unless you have a verb that
refers to the dialog (like a "said"), the prose actions should be
complete sentences of their own.

However, he _was_ still only a college intern, and as such was forced to
act as 'gopher' for the _real_ project scientists. Amongst other duties was
the carrying out of maintenance orders for various test subjects. He scowled
as he read the week's orders, sent down from Professor Ohta himself.

You're giving us a heck of a lot of backstory on this character. Do we
really need to know all of this? Considering that the order to release
the subject is pretty much already made, does it really matter who he
is?

"Dis be no fun," Headmaster Kuno complained, strumming out a mournful air
on his ukulele. "Dese keiki don' be havin' enough o' a challenge, yeah?" He
produced a small box with a Big Red Button on top and extended the antenna.

Why capitalize "big red button?"

1. Ukyo was momentarily startled as Secret flew _through_ her due to the
knockback from Akane's punch, allowing Arrowette a moment to whip out a
spare bowstring and attempt to restring her bow.

Suggest rewording somehow to get rid of the repetition of "bow" and
"string."

2. Tatewaki Kuno stood up from a dead faint, crying "I fight on!" This
caused Robin to spring back without looking and fall into one of the furrows
dug up by Ryoga and Li'l Lobo's game of shot-for-shot.

BATMAN: Wotta putz.

ROBIN: I heard that!

4. Ranma's improperly-executed Hiryu Shoten Ha interacted with the Speed
Force surrounding Impulse and detonated into a massive explosion of
lightning and icy clouds that swiftly enveloped the field, blowing all
concerned off their feet.

That might be a bit much action to happen all at once.

6. Headmaster Kuno's Device activated, exploding from the turf in the centre

device	(not a proper name)

Kimiyo hammered the call-button on the Justice League communicator sewn
into her right glove. "This is Dr. Light in Japan! We have an emergency, I
repeat, an emergency! I need backup, boy, do I need backup! J'onn, Clark,
Diana, anyone!"

Even if she knows it, I think she'd have sense enough not to blab
Superman's real name where Lobo (for example) could hear it.

High above on the surface of the moon, relays beamed the message into the
fringes of the solar system, where the JLA was desperately attempting to
destroy a Khundish invasion fleet that had warped into the orbit of Pluto
minutes before. Aquaman, forced into manning the comm. system of the JLA's
spacecraft by virtue of being unable to contribute to the space battle,
answered. "Dr. Light, we read you. We're a little tied up right now saving
the world from alien invasion."

AQUAMAN: Message received. I'll go right away and talk to the fishes.

Kimiyo hung her head in misery. There was no _way_ she could handle the
creature on her own. What on earth possessed the intern to let this thing
loose? she wondered. He was gone, first thing tomorrow. Assuming Japan
survived 'till tomorrow...

'til	(I think)

"Kamisama!" Dr. Light swore, "He's headed for the suburbs!"

"Kamisama!" Dr. Light swore. "He's

or

"Kamisama," Dr. Light swore, "he's

Nabiki Tendo was _not_ a happy camper. Visions of piles of yen suddenly
sprouted wings and flapped away as what was originally a series of
straightforward challenge matches, rapidly degenerated into a free-for-all
brawl, pitting random Neriman against random Superhero, and both sides
against the Big Kahuna's... Thing.

thing.	(not a proper name)

"No, you idiots! Stick to your own opponents!" she cried through the
megaphone, but if anyone heard her over the noise, they didn't obey. Nabiki
begin to quietly weep. "I _must_ be losing my touch," she moaned. "I
should've known this would happen." Oh the shame. She'd thought she'd
covered all the angles; she had people betting on individual fighters as
well as the spread, but somehow, someway, she hadn't factored in outside
interference from Da Principal or other matches.

That *is* pretty dang stupid for her. If anything, I'd think she'd be
*counting* on outside interference to invalidate the results so that she
wouldn't have to pay off.

Now, all bets were off,
she'd have to give back all the wagered monies. At least... At least there

off, and she'd	(run-on)

Nabiki's left eye began to twitch in time with the quivering of her bottom
lip. "Stupid, stupid... Serves me right for listening to the wastebasket."

TSUBASA: Heh heh.

Their individual fights put aside in the face of the monstrous
Mecha-Pineapple, twelve abnormally-powerful teenagers lay siege to the

laid siege to	(past tense)

The Furinkan High Irregulars were in their element. At one time or another,
each had faced the maniacal machinations of Da Principal. True, this was the

Um, not really. Ryoga, Shamps, and Mousse never did, as they don't go to
Furinkan.

Kuno sniffed. "Though it pains me to say this, I owe you thanks, Watermelon
Boy. Think not, however, that this spares you from my vengeance ere my
father's vile creation lies broken!"

"Ere" means "before," while "after" is clearly intended here.

In the air above, Wonder Girl wrestled with a half-dozen steel tentacles
tipped not with shears but with grabber-claws. Every time her gods-gifted
strength yanked one out it's housing, another swarmed forth to take it's

its (both times; it's means "it is")

A mannequin head wearing shades and a tiny palm  tree growing out of its
hair sprang out of the end of the limb the chef had blocked. "Aloha! De
wahines get de bowl-cuts!" It squawked, its grinning mouth springing open

it	(no caps, as presumably it's squawking the line of dialog, not
just squawking).

"Aiyah..." Shampoo said breathily, before shaking her head violently.

"Aiya..." or "Ai ya..."

She sprang past him towards the fray, two wickedly-sharp curved swords in
place of her customary bonbori. "Machines that try to cut Amazon's hair go
to very bad place!"

MOUSSE: You mean... the junkyard?

SHAMPS: Uh huh.

"I'm comin' Akane!" He yelled, bursting free of a mass of tentacles at her

comin', Akane!" he

Ranma-chan pried herself out of the muddy rut she'd been driven into by the
blast of water. "Heh..." She chuckled nastily, wiping a glob of mud off her
face. "I don't think it's over yet..."

"Whoa!" Superboy gasped, taking in the sight of a muddy-yet-stunning
redhead that had appeared from nowhere. "Got-ta get me some'a _that_!"

SUPERBOY: Wow! It's one of those hair colors only clones can see!

RANMA: Where?

"I know not," Kuno intoned, flicking his wet bangs out of his eyes. "But it
is doubtless some diabolical plot by mine own nefarious sire. Perhaps a
shampoo and blow-dry is next?"

MOUSSE: How DARE you suggest that Shampoo would....

Ranma-chan snap-kicked the kendoist out of the yard. "Not now, jerk.
Awright," she called to the visiting team, "Who wants some?!"

"Me! Me!" Lobo and Superboy cried, jumping up and down. Wonder Girl's
eyebrow twitched and she began to growl, low in her throat.

Heh.

Impulse, newly recovered, noticed that Robin was making that face again,
but there was _still_ no sweatdrop appearing. He wondered if they'd _ever_
learn how before they went home.

This is exactly the kind of handling for the sweatdrop references I was
suggesting in the last C&C.

"All... this... aside," Robin scowled wetly, "I think it's safe to say we

aside." Robin scowled wetly.

won. Four of us are still here and standing, while your group," he gestured

group." He

vaguely at Akane and Ukyo, "Is down to two. We win."

and Ukyo. "Is

(You need a "said" or similar verb if you want to break the dialog in
the middle of a sentence.)

On the sidelines, faint hope for salvaging her profits flared in Nabiki's
breast. "Hold it! Hold everything," she called, charging onto to muddy
field, heedless of the spraying water. "I hereby declare this match null and
void! Not only was there interference from outside," she jerked her head

outside." She

Wonder Girl sniffed. "And who asked you, you... you exhibitionist! Butt
out!"

"Hey! I ain't no exhibitionist! I've never even _looked_ at another guy!"

Huh? That joke went over my head. Maybe something like "I've _never_
worked at a museum!" ?

"Auieee..." Da Kahuna moaned as he passed out, revealing Robin behind him,

Revealing to whom? Confused by the POV here.

Nabiki swore fervently in Japanese as she picked herself up off the ground.

Really don't think you need the "in Japanese" here. What *else* would we
expect her to swear in? ^_^;;

NABIKI: Merde!

Author's notes: the Flash Facts and Ranma Facts bits are my personal salute
to those seminal 60's Flash writers, John Broome and Julius Schwartz, who

Wasn't Schwartz an editor, rather than a writer?

Apology: Gary, I know you're gonna hate my prose style in this piece, but
like I've said, it happens sometimes, and sometimes (I hope ~_^) it works.
Hope you can enjoy it anyway.

Actually, I thought the writing was pretty good. True, I could've done
without the narrator intrusions, but there weren't too terribly many of
them and the rest had a quite good descriptive style. The only thing
that really needs to go, IMO, is the opening paragraph.

All in all, a fun read, with quite good characterizations. Looking
forward to seeing the big battle when it's ready.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html
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