Continuing...

     "We're not getting anywhere," Ranma rasped some time later.

Heh.

table, and poured.  Ranma picked up a cup and blew on it to cool
it a little.  "Thanks."  He sipped cautiously.

     "You're welcome, Bridegroom."  Cologne rolled her own cup
between her palms, staring into the amber liquid.

Heh.  Deliberately inserting an ambiguous scene, to make the
more reluctant-to-believe readers think there might be something
in the tea?

that all that was over.  The pain would be because Akane wasn't
clobbering him, not because she was. 

Nice turn of phrase.

"What I really want to know, though, is why Kasumi would marry
Ranma."

Having all your characters ask this question works to underline
that we don't really quite know, at the end of this, though we
do get hints.  Are you planning to ever answer this question
fully?  (If not, suggest you dispense with a few of the echoes
of this question in this story.)

     "You can't," Ukyo managed.  "You promised to marry me.  You
promised to take care of me."

     "That was if the sauce turned out good," Ranma couldn't help
pointing out, "and it--"

Heh.  Really put his foot into it here, didn't he.  This is so like
Ranma.

     "Huh?" Ranma began, but Ukyo had already spaced out.

Of course...  (and that's a nice way to put it)

     Ukyo sank back down on her stool and put her head in her
hands.  "Oh, crap."

     "Deep an' sticky," Ranma agreed.

And here.  Ranma turning a phrase exactly the wrong way.

     Ranma took a deep breath and committed himself, reflecting
that he was beginning to get the hang of it. 

And that's part of the melancholy of this series.  Almost any
man _would_ get the hang of this, given these kinds of experiences,
whether they wanted to or not.

"It gets easier and easier each time... and then it gets hard
to stop." -Davies

     "The other woman you go to for love because you're trapped
in a loveless marriage?  You'll sneak out and come to my place,
and we'll, um, you know-- oh, I'm so embarrassed!"

Heh.  Never occurred to me to use Ukyou's romantic imagination
for this purpose, though her performance in the Hinako-sensei
intro story ("a forbidden love between student and teacher")
certainly makes it plausible.

     That sounded like the usual Ucchan.  Ranma sneaked a peek,
and sure enough she was looking dreamily at the ceiling with her
hands clasped beside her cheek.

Well, except that for "the usual Ucchan" the phrase
"I'm so embarrassed" is usually followed by violence..

     "I accept."  Ukyo gave Ranma an unhappy look.  "Don't get me
wrong; it's not my first choice, not by a long shot. 

Strikes me as a trifle fast, though, even so.  Maybe you should
have her get violent, followed by contrition, first? 

     Kuno Tatewaki assumed the wakki-ga-kamae stance and centered
his concentration on the straw target dummy at the other end of

"pigtailed straw target dummy" (I suggest)

     "If you say so," Ranma agreed casually, thinking that sudden
blood loss on Ryoga's part might have more to do with it than
what kind of girl Akari was. 

Interesting observation on Ranma's part.  He can get that
some girls might be like this when he's not the guy in the picture;
but he can't (yet) think this way about Kasumi, or think that
Shampoo might be a "nice girl" like Akari, given appropriate
circumstances.

     Ranma grimaced.  "Listen, Ryoga," he began seriously, coming
around the tent and sitting down on the ground, "you gotta
understand something.  I wasn't in the way.  Nobody was.  To her,
I'm just a-- a friend."

This passage, in particular, seems to me to underline that this
Ranma clearly is a bit older than the one we're used to; he is a
bit more observant when it comes to other people.  (The Ranma
we're used to is always obsessed that Ryouga might make
time with Akane.)  Which makes it the more jarring that Akane's
behavior is exactly what we're used to, or maybe even regressed
to the early part of the manga.  Not sure what you can do about
it, though; she has to make these decisions.  I suppose you
might consider trying to show her a bit more grown up in other
respects, however:  improve her cooking, give her another
new hobby, have her make some interesting observations
about Nabiki or somebody.

     Ryoga bristled.  "And what's wrong with Nabiki-san?"

Heh.  That's SO like Ryouga.

     "I--  You--  All along, I've been expecting you to tell her
about P-chan at any moment! 

The actuality is that, in several stories, Ryouga shows clear
expectation that Ranma will help him conceal matters.  It
is quite plausible that Ryouga would misremember this,
however.

course.  Ryoga was about the best friend he had, not counting the
girls he wouldn't marry and the girl who wouldn't marry him.

GARY:  "There's no evidence of that!"

     "Akane would go bananas," Ranma muttered.

     Nodoka sighed again.  "Yes, well, Akane-chan has many
virtues, but Kasumi-chan will certainly make you a better wife.

Interesting definition of "better wife" here...  (Not that Nodoka
would apply it to herself, of course.)

     Or maybe they were planning to slip her into Kasumi's
wedding costume and makeup, which would mask anyone's identity,
and then Ranma would end up married to her without even knowing
it.  She wasn't sure she'd go along with that one, though,
because it threatened to give away her hypothetical feelings
without revealing his.

It would be just like canonical Akane to try to initiate a plan
like this herself.  And the Akane who did disguise herself this
way in the Combat Cheerleader story didn't worry overmuch
about revealing her feelings.

Not that I'm suggesting you change anyone's actions, of course.
But this does add another point to the problem I'm having with
Akane in general in this story.  On the one hand, her decisions
are stupid enough so that I have no problem accepting the
pain she gets from them; _this_ Akane is consistent in this
story, and I care somewhat for her, and feel for her pain (in a
melancholy rather than heartbroken way).  OTOH, this Akane
is not consistent with her canonical self plus 1 1/2 years in the
same way that pretty much all your other characters are.  (In
some places, I think you've even displayed originality in your
canonicity.)

You _might_ want to make a few allusions here and there about
events which stiffened Akane's resolution not to give away her
feelings, not to act first.  Perhaps something fairly recent, which
looked to her like Ranma humiliating her for doing just that?

     She didn't have to do anything about it.

     She could just wait.

     Everything would be back to normal again before she knew it.

     It'd always happened that way before.

     It'd happen this time, too.

     Wouldn't it?

The above, specifically that last line, _could_ be interpreted
as Akane's having grown up a little.  But to me it looks like Akane
being even stupider than usual.  If she can even think "wouldn't
it?", she can think that it might not happen that way this time.

Might also want to go into a bit more detail about the additional
failed marriages:  if Akane'd been really hopeful, and really
hurt, by the failure of one in particular, that _looked_ really
foolproof in advance, this passage would go down easier.

costume; Nabiki knew they had names, but didn't know what they
were and didn't care.

Good detail for Nabiki.

     "How can you do this to Akane?" Nabiki interrupted.

     Kasumi sighed, carefully so as not to disturb her makeup or
clothing.  "Nabiki, you know what happened.  You were there."

<clip>

     "Father was getting desperate.  We tried everything, don't
you remember?  

Nabiki struck me as a strange choice for this conversation,
though I don't know who else you might have used.  Akiko?
She seemed a bit OOC in a couple of places, but it's clear
that Kasumi's side of this conversation needs to be shown.

     "That's a very personal question," Kasumi said evenly after
a moment.  "But love isn't the issue here.  Marriage is the
issue."

     "I must be hearing you wrong," Nabiki said, sticking her
little finger in her ear and rotating it.  "Love might not be
about marriage, but marriage is definitely about love."

     "Is it?" Kasumi asked, her tone challenging something Nabiki
took for granted.

Here we get to the gist.  Kasumi comes through pretty clear
here:  this is primarily about marriage and duty, at least as
far as she's willing to say to Nabiki.  But why portray Nabiki 
as the person who takes "marriage is... about love" for granted?  
You need some interlocutor who believes this, and it can't be
Akane for obvious reasons.  But attributing this POV to Nabiki
doesn't work well for me.  Suggest making it Akiko, perhaps,
though I think we should see _some_ reaction from Nabiki.
Or maybe Nabiki comes in, assuming this POV, but Kasumi
can see it's an act, and says so before Nabs leaves?

It's primarily the authorial "something Nabiki took for granted"
that I'm having a problem with, so you ought to be able to
do something with that (of course, you might have surprising
plans in sequels for Nabiki, but it's hard to see what they
could be that would require this reaction here).

     "That's the obvious reason," said Nabiki, still speaking
slowly, as though she were afraid of her own words.  "I'm sure
Father and the Saotomes believe it.  But I thought of another
one.  If you shove Akane out of the way and marry Ranma-kun
yourself, you get everything.  The house, the dojo, the land, the
accounts, the line of inheritance and the family name,
everything.  You'd be all set."

     Kasumi didn't move, and her white makeup concealed her
expression.  Her voice, when it came, was light.  "Wouldn't that
be YOUR reason for marrying Ranma-kun, Nabiki?"

     "My--?"

     "Anyone who knows me, and Ranma-kun, and our situation,
would understand why we're doing this.  It's very sad that you
don't.  And it's very surprising that you, of all people, would
lecture me about love... since you've always chosen your
boyfriends for the size of their wallets."

All this is precisely the point.  This IS Nabiki's reason for marrying
Ranma, which she's not following through on.  So why is she
confronting Kasumi at all?  Clearly Nabiki hasn't changed that much
in 1 1/2 years if this is the first reason she can think of why
Kasumi might be doing this.

still blow this sky-high," she hissed vindictively.  "I'll bet
Ranma loves Akane too.  What do you suppose will happen if I go
tell him she loves him back?"

<clip>

to ruin our wedding.  Ranma wouldn't believe you, you see."

<clip>

he?  Especially after what you did last month."

     Nabiki flinched.  It'd been a beautiful practical joke; the
expense had been moderate, and the expression on Ranma's face at
the payoff had been priceless.  Kasumi was certainly correct.

Interesting that it occurs to Nabiki to try to talk to Ranma to
stop matters, but never occurs to her to try to talk to Akane
to stop matters.  The latter would still work at this point (maybe).

face; white headdress... was it really supposed to hide horns?
Weird.

"Weird" is probably not what Ranma should be thinking, on
the subject of hiding horns on Kasumi.  How about "wouldn't
work.  When Kasumi had horns, they stuck out right where
they'd be pushing the headdress up."

     Kasumi-san had sipped from the same cup his lips had just
touched.  He was about to do the same.  What was usually a
serious social no-no was done here on purpose, just to whack them
over the heads with the fact that the rules were about to change
for them, that some forbidden things were about to become
permitted... or even required.

Nice wedding description, btw.  Obviously you've done your
homework.

"Sa, uh, Tendo Ranma," he managed in conclusion.

As the text stands, we're to suppose that Ranma is taking "Tendo"
by virtue of Kasumi heading the new family register, since no
previous adoption has been mentioned.  The problem, of sorts,
is that this is regarded as the unmanly path in Japan, and it
in implausible that Nodoka would tolerate it.  She'd insist on the
adoption the day before, and Ranma heading the family
register.  A minor nit, I assure you, but also one easily
fixed.



             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'