Hey ho,

Meant to C&C this a while ago, but I seem to have fallen pretty far behind.  
Blame it on FFIRC; I suddenly discovered reams of fandubbed anime just 
waiting to be downloaded, and caught up with 59 episodes of Inu Yasha over a 
few days.  Now I'm tackling Fruits Basket: saccharine, melodramatic, overly 
cutesy, emotionally blunt... and somehow strangely compelling...

Er, anyhoo, on to some C&C... as usual, take it for what it's worth 
(probably not much).  Ignore me at will, though I hope something's of 
use--hopefully I won't just repeat what previous comments have offered.

I offer this, my
first effort but not likely my last, into said unfamiliar world. A

I certainly hope so... it was the quality of writing, as opposed to the 
subject matter (though strong in itself) that compelled me to C&C.  Great 
stuff, and hope to see more.

story about five minutes in the world of Ranma, where they
lose a little bit of Ranma. For a reason. It has no title, nor does it
warrant one. Private replies appreciated, if you see anything in this
at all.

Five minutes, though obviously somewhat longer in flashback.  Do they really 
lose a bit of Ranma?  Unfortunately, I read the prior C&C before writing my 
own, so I can't come at this clean--I read your own explanation of what you 
were intending.  I don't necessarily agree that they've lost any of the guy; 
a maturing in character doesn't necessarily mean a distancing from those in 
his life.  I'd think it warrants a title, but couldn't suggest one; I'm crap 
at titles.  SorryI went public with the response... you responded publicly 
to the other C&C, so I thought it would be okay.

  It was night, maybe still late evening, though the sun was
not visible, hidden by large opaque clouds to the far West from
where it would not return. Saotome Ranma sat perched, smoking,
on the roof of an unknown house in the far reaches of Nerima, a
house he neither knew the address nor the owners of, nor had he
ever seen by day. He was squatting on the curved tile spine of the
roof with one finger pointed out before him for extra balance, and
he was listening to the rush of flowing water.

Oh, nice.  I'm not sure how exact to be in C&Cing something like this, 
because it largely comes down to differences in style.  So I'll just offer a 
couple of comments here and there--feel very free to ignore them.  The 
opening sentence, in my opinion, is beautiful but begins to feel forced or 
overburdened by the end.  Why the capitalised 'west', or the extra 'from 
where it would not return'?  The final bit unbalances the sentence, I think.

The second sentence feels unnecessarily run-on to me, but I should be the 
last one to complain about that... I do it all the time as well.  However, 
in 'nor had he ever seen by day,' I think you might be able to drop the 
'he'.

  It always started as the sound you hear riding a bicycle
through thick fog. Just a far away whisper. And then you would
begin to hear the sloshing around the rocks, then the hiss of the
faster current, and finally the burbling of the surface water itself, a
much greater noise, but somehow hidden behind that of the others.

Again, nice, and I believe you explained what you were getting at with this 
in the other response.  The opening metaphor, though, still strikes me as a 
bit odd.  Why a bicycle, as opposed to simply walking?  I know, I know, I'm 
being overly pickly--the short length of the story allows for closer 
criticsm, I guess.  It so well written, though, that it also invites it....

It hurt, though
it was the fourth time he done so with this long Taiwanese
cigarette.

Why Taiwanese?  Just curious....  Also, in

"Shhhhhhhhhhhh...." he finally allowed himself.

That last period should maybe be a comma, I think.

He
laughed when he thought about Ryoga, nodded when he thought
about Kuno, smiled when he considered Shampoo, frowned when
he visualized Akane, probably asleep on her futon, thinking about
some facet of her life.

Nice sentence.  Great flow, and excellent way to quickly lay down some 
characterization.  I wonder at the expressions allowed for Shampoo (sexual 
metaphor and all), and for Akane--though the longer bit assigned to Akane 
suggests deeper care, I suppose.

All of them, always there. Always more than
he last counted, and always the bringers of some new emotion. It

'the bringers' feels a bit clunker.  'bringing' isn't much better, 
though....

was funny how the more they hated him(or loved for that matter),

Space after 'him', maybe, and to balance the statements, 'or loved him,' 
maybe....

Ranma
had no doubt that he was a model among men, but over the last
year or so he had noticed the smallest tinge of something like
xenophobia or possibly agoraphobia.

I agree with the other person that that read a bit weird.  Agoraphobia I 
kind of like; the suggestions of fearful, open and unknown spaces works 
well.  Xenophobia works a bit less well (less images to connect to it), and 
having the two sounds clunky 'cus of the 'or possibly' linking them, in my 
opinion.

and Ryoga, secretly stabbed with guilt, came running at him again
that afternoon yelling something about the idea that it was

Like the run-on thought process writing style here.  Maybe change 'the idea 
that' to 'how'?

Ranma's fault there was a fight, and therefore damage to the
bokken had been as well.

That last bit doesn't work, I think.  Maybe 'the damage to the bokken had 
been his as well,' or something... dunno.

...she
had smiled and walked away to let whatever was going to happen,
happen without her.

Interesting.  A bit ooc... I know, you commented you weren't too concerned 
about it earlier... but an interesting take on the character.  If you're 
still using her as a sexual metaphor here--and if she _is_ intended as that, 
I don't think you can simply drop it--then it adds an extra dimension to her 
leaving (and chatting!).  I'd find it more interesting if she hung around 
and watched, though; nice linking of martial violence and sexual passion, 
maybe--some potential there, though probably only in a longer piece.

  And of course that happened as he knew it would. But he
had realized in that long past instant that the reaction hadn't been a
true reaction this time. No. It had been an instinct, one-second-

'an honest' reaction might sound better than 'a true'... dunno.

  "What are you sick?"

Maybe a comma after 'what', or even a '--', or a period.

Then he turned again and walked into the dojo.
Ryoga followed him for a few steps, until he thought he heard the
cry of the Blue Thunder from somewhere close by, and took off at
a run to conclude his revenge, the other bitterness apparently
forgotten.

A bit of an unclear reference here.  Who's taking off at a run, Kuno or 
Ranma?

  Ranma had been thinking about that afternoon off and on
for a solid month now. It had completely stopped 'bothering' him,
but the fact that it had been such a weird, uncharacteristic thought
had not let him forget it; especially the moment where he realized

'let' sounds out of place, considering the otherwise elevated language 
surrounding it.  I'd try 'had not allowed him to forget it,' maybe.

  He hadn't figured it out yet. Sure he had many believable

Maybe a comma after 'sure' (dunno) or maybe even drop it.

theories, but they hadn't assuaged his curiosity like they usually
would, considering the flighty quality of his memory of instants of

Maybe 'instants' should be 'instances'?  A self doubt of my own.

self doubt. They sat in his mind as just that, good, solid, theories
that certainly might be true. One of them was, obviously, since he
knew his own body better than anybody and the voice of true
reason must have spoken up in his mind at some point.

Maybe a colon instead of a comma after 'that', ie. 'They sat in his mind as 
just that: good...'  Or not; I tend to be colon happy.  The second sentence 
required a reread, though.  'One of them was...' what?  Obviously true, I 
realise, but only after rereading two or three times.

  But he just didn't seem to care about that. This was less a
case of curiosity, and more a case of slight unintentional interest in
a self of the recent past. A self that had fit in, otherwise perfectly,
in the sequence of selves up until that second and for every fraction
of a second afterward until the present. He realized that a small,
otherwise unemotional part of him had taken interest in that
moment of reflection and made it its personal goal to get him
thinking about it as much as possible.

This paragraph feels overly detached, or intellectualized, or maybe even 
unnecessary; other than the first sentence, I don't think the story would be 
weakened by its loss.  Not that it's not well written!  Just, I dunno, a bit 
much--in my opinion.

Especially there
was that in-between second where he had unconsciously compared
his readiness and prediction for the upcoming reactions with the
reactions themselves and saw that they shared a single line of
causality with each other and nothing else. The reaction had been
an extension of the prediction, and therefore was caused by the
prediction. (Not directly by Ryoga.)

Er... what?  I mean, yeah, I can follow what he's getting at, but not only 
is it a pretty convoluted thought, it's not very _real_, not very human, I 
guess.  'A single line of causality', 'an extension of the prediction'--I 
understand Ranma distancing himself from his actions of a year ago, but this 
distances the reader from _him_--not as good or desired an effect, I think.  
The "(not directly by Ryoga)" just hurts; it reads like the author just 
jumped in and offered an explantion, just in case we weren't reading close 
enough.

Though the following sentence does a great job of bringing it back.  But 
considering the importance of what Ranma's getting at in the above bit, 
burying it in overly-elevated language doesn't serve the story well... er, 
again in my opinion.

  He stopped breathing once more and let his nostril bite a
small whiff of smoke.

  Good. This time there had been no interruption in the sound
of rushing water. This meant he must have listened to the sound of
it for enough minutes to get it stuck in his ears and be unaffected

'long enough' instead of 'enough minutes', in my opinion--why does it have 
to be measured by minutes?

When it could, anyway. Training allowed greater
chances for that, and this simple exercise with the cigarette fell
well within those bounds.

How horrible.  To reduce an emotionally contemplative moment to an 
intellectualized training session renders Ranma into a thoroughly inhuman 
character... no wonder Shampootook off; I don't think this kind _has_ any 
sexual impulses, he'd have them under too tight a control.

  So he squatted there, rocking himself back and forth mere
millimeters as his single finger made tiny, minuscule corrections in
applied force in completely subconscious reactions to the tiny
changes in a barely perceptible wind; and he looked at the clouds
in the distance, and he wondered where the sun was, and then he
thought about what a damn riot it would be if he had Shampoo and
Akane both in one of his harder classes next year.

Heh, interesting.  Well, if he's got them both in the same homeroom, he'll 
have them both for all his classes.  If developping Shampoo as a 
metaphor--and I admit, had I not read it I wouldn't have picked up on it, 
I'm not sure there's enough hints--maybe Akane should be developped as a 
different, if not opposing, metaphor as well--the extra bit at top could 
suggest her in an intellectual roll, though of course that wouldn't jive 
with the rest of the fic.

-	- - - - - - -
-	- - - - - - -

  I didn't label this dark or anything because it isn't. Just >unusual, as 
is explained herein. And not OOC, not because I haven't >seen other spam 
way more ooc than this without the tag, but because I
think this is very in-character, and see no reason why it wouldn't
be, considering the premise. I hope the point of this came across, I >would 
love to hear what you think.

Well, I don't think it qualifies as spam, 'cus it isn't--it's pretty much a 
full story, thoug a very short one.  OOC?  I think it is, in 
places--especially the coldness with which Ranma can dismiss--or maybe 
relegate--his recent contemplation as nothing more than a 'simple exercise 
with [a] cigarette [falling] well within those bounds,' giving his give his 
'growing personality and grip on reality what it needed to stay warm and 
comfortable'.  A comment like that might work as narrative prose; but as 
inner monologue, it's cold, man.  The main theme--well, what I think is, 
anyway--is pretty cool, though, and well developped: that hesitation with 
Ryouga, that concern that's it's become automatic and artificial, as opposed 
to a genuine emotion, reaction, instinct.

Well, whatever.  Very well written, and sorry it took me so long to offer 
any C&C... dunno if it's any good, or of any use, and hope none of it comes 
off as inulting or something.  I'm just an ex-English student using 
long-untried critical skills, so try and bear with me, I guess.  I liked the 
story, and hope you write more.

Aw, crap, it's way past my bedtime....

-Mike

noakes_m@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/noakes_m

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