Bert Miller <hkmiller@theeddy.com> wrote:

Quoting Gary Kleppe <gary@garykleppe.org>:

General:  I was surprised how little the overall plot
seemed to be advanced this chapter.  There are some
nice character bits, though.  And nothing on the Ukyou/
Mikado subplot?

Well, the events in the last scene are certainly going to affect it. :)
As for the main plot, it's not going as fast as in the early chapters,
no, but the struggle to free Mousse and Kasumi is a main part of it, and
Ranma's energy crisis will play a major role in the resolution. The
introduction of the three paranormal agents is also of primary
importance.

slightly.  Akane knew how the he felt about Kasumi;

superfluous "the"

Ooops. Will fix.

held up a small ceramic pot. "No, the water was in
this, an ordinary gravy dish. Taken from Shan Pu's own
cupboard, it appears."

Hmmm... This just _might_, given later events and
revelations herein, have significance.

"I was on the phone with Washington

<clip>

"Your superiors?"

<clip?

"My wife."

Minor plausibility nit, I think, though I admit fixing
it might spoil the surprise.  I suspect very few CIA
personnel actually live in Washington proper.  I'd think
almost all would live in the suburbs.  Might want to
consider changing to "the States".

My assumption is that he says "Washington" when he means the general
area, because the former is more recognizable. Much in the same way that
I sometimes tell people I live in Chicago, even though I actually live
in Villa Park IL.

she was nonplussed

The word choice here seems odd to me.  She was
"completely perplexed" (Webster's)?  I'm not sure what
I'm supposed to read into this.  She didn't know how to
use weapons when she actually got the chance to?

My mistake; I misued that word. I meant that by the time she was old
enough, she had no particular interest in doing it. Will change.

Therefore we have equpiied her cell

misspelling

with enough of a demonstration to convince that

I keep expecting a "them" to follow "convince".  I think
you're technically correct that "convince" doesn't need
a direct object, but to me it reads funny.

Not sure, but I'll add the "them" just to keep it clear.

When it came down to it, Michaels was a family man.

<clip>

an attitude not too far removed from her own, Biaozi
supposed.

Not sure why Biaozi would suppose this; the two seem to
me diametrically opposed.  (You could be intending this
ironically, of course.)  Michaels clearly is in the trap
familiar to many Americans:  he thinks he can't match
his current paycheck in any other job which would keep
him closer to home, so he's in Mongolia while his oldest
son is in trouble at school.  And accepting a smaller
paycheck is anathema to him.  In such cases it is often
true that his family, if consulted, would willingly
accept the smaller paycheck for a stay-at-home job, just
to have him around more.

Biaozi, OTOH, is determined to intervene in the affairs
of her "family", against their own wishes.

No irony intended. I'm not exactly sure what distinction you're making
here. Both people are working to do what they perceive as best for their
respective family. That Biaozi's family is clearly
nonplus^H^H^H^H^H^H*whap*whap*whap*whap* is clearly unappreciative
(which Michaels' probably isn't, though we don't really know) is pretty
much beside the point as far as the comparison goes.

The main point of this bit was to shed some light on Michaels'
motivations. Since he's something of a villain in this fic, and
especially since he represents a class of people who your humble author
has a certain amount of dislike for, I thought it important to try to
treat him fairly, to show that he does what he does for understandable
reasons.

If you intended irony, might want to give us Michael's
opinion of Biaozi (if he has one).

MICHAELS: Strange woman. For some reason, she's deluded herself into
thinking that she's ninety years old. Go figure. But hey, she gets the
job done.

Actually, I'd considered giving Michaels his own section here, but
decided that too many POVs would bog the fic down. I decided to go with
Biaozi's POV here instead because it reveals some of her own
motivations, as well as a little more about exactly *what* she's up to
in the first place.

The means to ause such a transformation would have

Oops, another typo. Either that, or Biaozi's gone cockney.

been in the hands of Ke Lun herself, and passed upon
her death to... Shan Pu.

So is this is what the Linghungbao does?

Nope. She's referring to Cologne's own water. If you look way back at
Shamps' prelude, you'll see that there were two separate secret things
mentioned.

When one is made an Elder, her water is removed from
storage. She herself is then responsible for its
safety.

...or maybe not.  But "Ke Lun water" wouldn't make for
an irreversible curse.

Not normally, no.

*No one will blame me,* he repeated to himself, and he
knew it was a lie. At least one person would.

I liked this bit, with Gosunkugi taking a risk and
accepting the consequences.

He would find the right course of action by looking
not to what was expected of him, but to his own
fundamental nature -- to what he was.
And he would allow no one else to decide that.

Nice touch here too, having both
apparently-diametrically-opposed parents' voices agree
in the end on this.

While I normally plan everything in advance of actually writing it, this
was one bit that changed on the spur of the moment. The original plan
was for Tatewaki to just decide that it was his mother's fault, but that
idea struck me as a little too one-sided and cliched when I actually
started doing it.

"You look half dead."

<clip>

he just didn't feel like himself. At least not like
*all* of himself. Was it the flu? It had come on so
suddenly that he could almost pinpoint. It was right
around when they'd left the Amazon village. Right
after--

Hmmm...  (Quick check back to Chap. 5: Lili's spirit
left him, and he doesn't [can't] change to female any
more)

[soldiers sound too undisciplined]

Note to self: remove notes to self before posting. ^_^;;;

Agree.  Suggest beginning the scene with a conversation
indicating disgruntlement, or that they're conscripts
who just want to get out alive, or something.

Good ideas.

but it seemed that the okomiyaki chef was not so
fortunate.

Well, if the narrative gave us any real reason to think
that this _was_ Ukyou, anyway.  "Feral yelp" rather
suggests otherwise.

UKYO: [brandishes spatula] This had better not be another dog reference.

GARY: [sweats]

Nice chapter.  Hope we don't have to wait another two
years for the next part (though I'm certainly not one to
talk!).

Yeah, we haven't seen a chapter of "much ado" for quite a while, have
we. Anyway, I'm going to try to do better with this stuff. I've got a
new one-shot in the works -- a bit of fluff, er, I mean a bitingly
insightful satire cleverly disguised as a bit of fluff ^_^;; about
Happosai getting his underwear stolen -- which I'm giving myself another
two months to finish. We'll see if the pressure of a deadline, even an
artificial one, does any good. :)

As always, thanks very much for the highly thoughtful comments.



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