David Lerman writes:

a temple bell, or smelling a delicate shade of chartreuse - "A vatch," he
managed to croak. "I relled a vatch!"

  Yay!  Another Karres fan.  Hmmm.... Goth, Capt. Pausert, and the Leewit
end up in Ranmaverse?  That would be a weird crossover.

    Nah, a fusion with Ranma as Pausert, Akane as Goth, Maleen played by
either Kasumi or Ukyo, and - hmmm - Nabiki or Shampoo as the Leewit? Not
quite right - maybe Cologne? Nah, Happosai and Cologne have to be Threbus
and Toll. Glad someone else appreciates Schmitz' greatest work.

   His mother was the first to speak. "Ranma, I don't want you to think
I don't appreciate your attempts to prove your manliness, but it's not
necessary anymore. Really, son, I think four fiancees is enough for
anyone. Why on earth would you want another one? Is this yet another of
your father's arrangements?" she asked, looking sternly at Genma.

  Nodoka hasn't changed.

    Appearances can certainly be deceiving. To my mind, she's the scariest
person in this world.

   "This is not an acceptable situation," Nodoka said sharply. "Can we
locate this Xiar Min and find out from her? Perhaps force her to undo
whatever spell she used?"

  They can't force her.  No one is allowed to squeeze the Xiar Min.

    Oog. You know, I considered a joke along these lines, but thought better
of it.

welled in his eyes. Hadn't he been through this already? At the edge of
his senses he noticed something, a taste like lavender laughter. "That
damn vatch again!"

  THIS DREAM GAME IS MOST INTERESTING, SMALL PERSON.  

    That's right, this is the other possible explanation for Ranma's plight
that no one in the story came up with.

  Has Xiar Min ever successfully repeated a spell before?  Ranma has the
oddest effect on probability.  I wonder what would happen if he ever
visited Las Vegas?  

    I considered explaining this point, but left it out. Since this spell
used prepared ingredients (the green powder and the mandrake root), she
could repeat it until she ran out of powder or the root died. After that,
she'd be out of luck.

   Cologne said nothing. She looked at Ranma's face as he lay limply in
Shampoo's arms. It bore a look of peace that she had seldom seen there,
and a slight smile that was even more unfamiliar. She thought, "When I

  You should eliminate the sentence about his look since it seems to point
towards the dream world as the likely truth of the matter.  

    I considered this, since I wanted to leave the ending completely
ambiguous, but even as it was I got a few responses referring to the
"happy ending". The Ranma in the story is the only one who ends up
happy (well, Akane too if she's real), everyone else in the "parallel"
world of the story, plus the other Ranma if he was not simply dreaming,
ends up as miserable as before, if not more so.

    I may change this, since I need to revisit the ending. I was so
pleased by the prospect of actually finishing one of my stories that I
didn't review the last bits I wrote as thoroughly as the first parts.

    Thanks for the comments!

Reid Carson
rcarson@mnsinc.com