This is light fare, so it shouldn't cause any indigestion. Please
enjoy your in-fanfic meal... ^_^
Mmmm... salted peanuts....
And mini-pretzels and those strange little ginger cookies...
Le canard a la Pekin
Yep, there's yer evidence. Gratuitous Japanese leads to the harder
stuff....
:)
Of course it's not really "the harder stuff", that'd be something like
klingon or latin or... god forbid... ENGLISH! (grin, duck, and run)
It had been a tough and long lunch. The persistence of the male
Japanese libido never ceased to amaze Shampoo, and she'd
been forced
to bend three different pieces of rebar into pretzels,
one each for
What's rebar?
Reinforcing steel bars for concrete. C'mon, they're as common as
dirt.
but people who use that word for them aren't.
The tinkle of the front door bell and the loud, strident
voice of an
all-too-familiar rival caused the muscles in Shampoo's
back to start
tying themselves into knots again. <HER!> Tendou Akane was
rigorously decrying the latest escapade of her iinazuke, the very
Shall I mention that we have a perfectly good word for "fiance" in
English? Nahhhh. I'm sure Dave's well aware of this by now :)
We do have a good word for fiancee?! I thought 'fiancee' was French.
;P
the best true "english" word i can think of is 'intended', and i'm not
sure of that one.
Besides, what happened to the AmerEng spirit of borrowing words from
every single language in existence? you can even see it here, fiancee
from french. it's an evolving language... Chaucer. Shakespeare. Webster.
FFML.
"Now, Akane," Kasumi smoothly said, "I'm sure Ranma-kun had good
reason for being so hungry, and he did say he was sorry.
He does get
a lot of exercise, you know. Besides, if he hadn't eaten them,
Saotome-no-ojisama certainly would have." There was just the
slightest hint of disapproval in Kasumi's voice.
There was just the slightest hint of author bias in the gratuitous
character dig. (Well, more than just the slightest,
actually.... ^_^)
heh.
This Genma and Ranma as hyper-glutton thing kinda smells of fanfic
cliche to me. I mean, these are the people who, for the sake of
training, left a nice home and a skilled cook to subsist
on whatever
scraps they could scrape up for ten years. Okay, so we
know that they
generally don't say no to free food when it's offered, or
sometimes even
when it isn't. :) But is there any time in the manga
where they're shown
not leaving any food for anyone else?
I'm sure Shampoo would agree with you, especially after they
proceeded to devour her First Prize without asking. :/
they stopped when they noticed an angry amazon bimbo glaring at them, if
i remember correctly.
Everyone except Akane, who was steaming at Shampoo, turned at the
strangled squawk that came from the young man wiping the
tables. The
elder sisters were trying to decide if Shampoo had been talking
about Mousse as a suitor or an entree. For that matter, so was
Mousse.
Suggest cutting these last two sentences. You lose much
of the humor by
having to explain it.
Point.
i thought it was hilarious... the last one in particular sounds just
like something out of Python or Adams.
In the kitchen, Cologne pushed the chopped celery off of
her board
and picked up a large onion. She needed a good cover,
not that she
felt she needed to explain herself, and onion fumes would provide
one. The wa
The who?
of the restaurant had to be maintained. Yes, that's
it... precisely.
Cologne was surprised at just how much fun living in Nerima could
be. She smiled as the conversation in the dining area started up
again.
Showing that Cologne has a sense of humor is fine, IMO,
but going out of
your way to show a character laughing at your own scene
is bad form. We
are the readers. We will decide whether your scene was funny. ^_^
Yes, the second paragraph could be omitted without difficulty.
i would agree but i wouldn't want to be one of those people who walks
into an art museum with a set of paints.
"Oh, dear. You don't have Peking Duck, Shampoo-san?"
Kasumi looked
up at her waitress.
Shampoo couldn't help but smirk at Mousse before
addressing Kasumi.
"No Peking Duck today. Have number one good garlic chicken."
KASUMI: Well, never mind. An order of pressed duck, if you please.
SHAMPOO: I'm afraid we never have that in the middle of
the week, ma'am.
Always get it fresh on Monday.
KASUMI: Tsk, tsk. How are you on duck l'orange?
SHAMPOO: Sorry, ma'am.
Why am I thinking of a cheese shop all of a sudden? ;)
heh. i dunno... ;)
Akane smirked at having elicited a slip of annoyance from Shampoo
and turned back to her menu. "Well, hang on a minute. I
gotta read
tha menu."
Kasumi's eyes peered reprovingly from over the top of
her own menu.
"Speech, Akane."
"Sorry, Oneechan."
KASUMI: Akane! Language!
AKANE: Sorry, Sister.
KASUMI: That's better.
Gah. Just can't let it go, hey? ^_-
(Did you mean to write "tha," or is that a typo?)
Intended.
badly so. it doesn't get the message across because it looks too much
like a typo. try "th'" instead.
"FINE! Airen want duck?! Airen go marry MOUSSE!"
"HEY!" Mousse finally had to comment.
"... ... Shampoo not say that. Nope. Is old Joketsuzoku
technique.
Make you THINK you hear that."
Heh.
of course, what would her motive be for making them THINK they heard it
anyway?
:)
Cologne's eyes slid slowly to the front door and then back to
Nabiki. "We appear to be fresh out," she deadpanned.
this was the punchline, wasn't it?
Akane fell out of her chair, howling. Nabiki barked a
laugh and then
bit her hand, tears starting to run down her face; after all, she
had an image to maintain. Kasumi put her other hand over her eyes
and rested her elbows on the table, her body lightly convulsing.
Consider my earlier comments about the characters laughing at the
author's humor restated. :)
Okay. :) On the other hand, how else would they react? Besides,
they're not laughing at my humor; they're laughing at Cologne's. A
fine distinction perhaps...
yeah, that's how i saw it. and you wouldn't be complaining if Takahashi
had written it... or if it'd been written by the Python gang or Adams
with different characters.
"Now, Kasumi-san, about those wonderful quail patties
you let me try
that day..."
"Oh, my." *Sniffle.* "Well, they're quite easy to prepare..."
DANE QUAYL: Aaack!
AKANE: Look, if I didn't want Mousse, I CERTAINLY don't want HIM!
Stream-of-consciousness humor... Gotta love it! :)
heh.
"Mmmmm!" Ranma laid herself out on a beach recliner in the Tendou
backyard, three Peking Ducks settling nicely in her stomach,
producing a satisfying bulge in her bare midsection. She wore one
bit of nothing that barely covered the appropriate lower parts of
her girl form, a state of dress she would've never been
caught in if
Akane and, more importantly, Nabiki weren't out of the house.
"Guys sunbathe topless, and I'm a guy," she grumbled to herself.
So why is he doing this in girl form? :) Perhaps you could mention
something about his having been splashed accidentally and
deciding it's
not worth the bother to go and change back.
Read on...
Yes, that explains why you wrote it. it does not explain why he chose to
be in that form.
<Too bad Tendou-san doesn't see it that way...> But she
then smiled
as the sun started warming her. There was just something
about the
way she felt when sunning in this body that was just so
utterly...
pleasant that she wished she could do it completely nude. She
grinned naughtily, but decided not to put name to any
other feelings
she might be having.
*Sigh* And Dave falls victim to his typecasting, with
only a few more
paragraphs to go. Sad, really.... ^_^
Hey, it's a point of view. Everyone should have them. :)
huh?
With dinner-plate eyes and presenting warding gestures with her
hands, Ranma groaned and turned slightly green, having
misinterpreted Shampoo's meaning.
Again, don't tell us explicitly that he's misinterpreting
the meaning.
Describing his visions of having eaten Mousse would make
the point much
better IMO (assuming that *is* how he's interpreting it).
Agreed.
yeah.
FIN
MOUSSE: We ducks don't have fins; we have webbed feet. Thankyew.
heh.
Well... you've got a good potential for humor in the
juxtaposition of "I
want duck" vs. "I want Mousse." But it's not exploited to
anywhere near
the degree that it could be, I think. The raw material is
fine, but you
need a lot more work to get it into a form where it's as
funny as it
could be. For example, you could have Mousse overhear
each Tendo sister
in turn tell Shampoo how she really wants duck tonight,
and Mousse gets
the wrong idea. Or something. The basic idea is there,
but the execution
didn't really work for me as written.
Well, I can appreciate that it doesn't work for you as written. I
think, however, we're focussing on different aspects of the humor,
here, a difference in how we two perceive a set of circumstances as
being funny. Mousse is just an innocent bystander, in this case,
while the primary action is Shampoo going a little nutto from having
had a long day. Things just snowball from there, going somewhat as
they will for the sake of fluidity.
>From reading your general comments on the humor, I can't help but
feel it would become your story and not mine, at least in part. That
is not to say that I think your comments are wrong, necessarily, but
I can't help but get the feeling that the general criticism is
rooted in our differing perceptions.
However, I will go through and see if your suggestions can be
implemented without changing the general thrust of the humor, which
I am quite satisfied with.
Thanks for the comments, Gary. As usual, thought-provoking. ^_^
Dave
*******************************************
D.F. Roeder
FanFiction - http://home.flash.net/~dfroeder/index.html
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