Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only swinging on
the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds cleaner than you found
them and please don't feed the Trolls.

This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/

Release 1.3 (Dec. 04, 2000)

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Author's Notes: 

Okay, this marks the middle of the first arc. Wheeeee. Ahem. 

Short prologue, sorta, but Sayuri continues to develop. I swear that I
did not know that she was a hero when I started this mess. It surprised
me completely.

Akane's martial arts problems are caused by her own laziness as much as
anything, I think. In the manga, she seems to have a great liking for
'special bonuses' that don't involve actually having to change the way
she does things where the Art is concerned. So, in this fic, I'm not
gonna let her slack. Heh.

The main part of Point of Contact is another stylistic variation,
playing on Ranma telling a story within the story. I'm trying to get
across some of the degree to which Ranma has matured here from that
which he is more normally seen in. It also, I think, provides something
of a sense of the areas in which he _has not_ matured, and also the
degree to which that very maturity, so to speak, is causing problems of
its own.

Also, if you thought what Ranma did to the boys in this chapter was
cruel, you should have seen what the initial plot had him doing. Nasty.

Then we get the Big Fight Scene. I think it does very well, for what it
is. I only want to point out that Akane and others get as much or more
play than Ranma does, and Ranma doesn't get to prove herself much of a
hero. This is intentional, just in case that wasn't clear before.

The third part was originally two parts, which were both much larger.
In fact, I ran on. I have tried to put my tendency to blabber on a
reducing diet in this release. To compensate, most of Ranma's back-
story, and a lot of talking heads about martial arts and how the world
works here have been spun off into side area, Telling Stories and
Training Sequence, respectively. These side areas will be continued
throughout the story as I find the need.

'Til Next,
Eric Hallstrom 01/16/2001