On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, David Homerick wrote:

The story was rather poorly written, but I don't think that's at the
root of your complaint.  I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but
it sounds like you're complaining about what he was trying to do, rather
than whether he succeeded or not.  Is a story in which the Senshi are
overmastered and slaughtered -- really slaughtered, with no deus ex moon
crystal power -- such a horrible thing that it must never even be
*attempted*?

It ought to be believable. Sailor Moon has faced people capable of laying
waste to entire planets.  (Galaxia, for example, who destroyed an
entire planet by herself.)  She's faced beings that could probably
vaporize Gally with one shot and lived.  She then gets killed by a
goofball werewolf who is basically a disposable goon in the eyes of his
masters.  

What makes it worse is that Gally, who takes this thing out with no
trouble just blithely stands around and lets everyone die before she then
even TRIES to do anything.  

Also important is that their deaths are completely pointless. While people
are free to write a totally nihilistic story if they want to, using Sailor
Moon for it is utterly antithetical to the spirit of the series.  It's
like writing an Animaniacs episode where the Warners gang-rape the Hello
Nurse, Slappy graphically butchers people and eats them, and Rita and Runt
fight a battle to the death, after which Runt takes up flaying children
alive. 

Sure, you COULD write it, and you might even write it with technical
skill and greatly enjoy doing it.  But what's the point?  If I want
nihilism, I'll go read Fathers and Sons again.  (A Russian novel from the
1860s).  

Maybe someone could write a story where the sailors are brutally
slaughtered and make it worth reading, but this piece of garbage, whose
main point seemed to be "Look at how much Gally kicks ass compared to
these Sailor losers", is NOT it.

  


  > >  

We like crossovers, right?  What about a crossover between Sailor Moon
and an H.P. Lovecraft story, or John W. Campbell Jr's "Who Goes There?"

Some of Lovecraft's stuff is showing up in Sailor Moon Z :)

(the basis for the movie "The Thing")?   

That would be cool.  Basis for the SECOND version of "The Thing", I'll
note :)

Hm.  Bad blood.  Just try not to confuse your opinion of the author with
your opinion of the story.

That's rather difficult.  If someone has baselessly slandered you, it's
rather difficult to take a neutral position of their writings.  

I never read any of "Hitomi Ichinohei"'s writings for the same
reason--Being repeatedly flamed by "her" for reasons that never made any
sense to me made it impossible for me to ever enjoy anything she wrote.
At the same time, I didn't like most of "her" writing for other reasons as
well.  I'm going to shut up now before I go totally off topic and rant.
[Rant more, anyway]





John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/

      It sought to scour him to ash, but he would not burn.  It tried to 
crush him, but he would not be broken.  It tried to blow him away, but he 
would not move.  He locked his mind around it and struck back with his 
anger, binding it with the power within himself.  He had gone beyond 
rage, into the calm at the heart of the hurricane of his anger.  By 
turning his anger outward, he mastered it, and now he did the same for 
the power.

                                   --from 'Power', the first third of my
unfinished story, 'Parallel Lives'.