Oh God, this is long. But, since C&C is
supposedly welcome here, then by God you'll get
some. Obsessive-Compulsive as I am, I've
attempted to C&C this part in its entirety by
means of my line-per-line type of C&C. Crazy as
I am not, I'm only doing this detailed a
critique for this part and this part alone. My
judgment on the last two parts will be left in
synopsis. Ikuzo.
Oh, boy. This kind of C&C I don't get often ... more's the pity.
I'm going to pass over a fair bit of what you say, simply because a lot
of it is based on not having read the earlier chapters. I don't wish to
be niggly, but I do think that, by the time an author gets to chapter 11
of a fairly sizeable story, he or she has a right to expect a certain
degree of familiarity with what has come before on the reader's part.
This is not a condemnation of you, the reviewer. It is, rather, a simple
explanation. (In fact, your commentary suggests that you picked up what
was going on fairly well. If the beginning had you somewhat confused, well,
it was continuing from a cliff-hanger ending the chapter before.)
Previous chapters did begin with a much more complete summary of the entire
story to date. Actually, I abandoned that with this very chapter, because
the summaries were starting to get too long and unwieldy. When I tried to
keep the size down, it amounted to summarising the summary and became too
general to be much use. So, on the theory that what most readers need is
just a quick refresher on what's been happening lately, I switched to a
brief overview of main plot points from the last few chapters.
So. Anyway. To your actual comments:
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
SAILOR MOON 4200: What has gone before
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crystal Tokyo was destroyed in the year 3478. Civilisation fell; a dark
age began. Now, the year 4200 is a time of renaissance, and the city of
Third Tokyo is defended by a new generation of Senshi. Some of them are
old faces, reborn yet again. Others are newcomers. But all of them are
in trouble -- because the enemy that annihilated Crystal Tokyo was never
defeated. And it is waiting for them ...
Cool. Most authors don't really bother writing
these 'what has gone before' thingies. OTOH,
most authors don't write literally
novella-length fics. ;)
The chapters started out smaller, honestly. I always meant to keep them
to 40-60K.
Trouble is, when I outlined the overall story, I split it into a particular
number of chapters. But as time goes by, it's taken more and more words to
cover the material outlined for each chapter ...
>and Itsuko (once Hino Rei). *
I see an asterisk, but I don't see any footnotes
in this part... <_< >_> (checks on the archives
of part 2 and 3) Nothing there either. So is the
asterisk a typo? A code? An in-joke? ?_?
Simply a divider, as you noted later.
>"What!" he shouted, jumping up and looking around blearily. "I didn't
do it! It was --" His eyes finally focussed on her.
focused
My dictionary says that either is correct. That being the case, I'm not
sure which to prefer, now. :)
>In the street below, 'S' Division were on the move.
'S' Division's just one 'team'/division, right?
Meaning it's singular and not plural, ne? So it
should be "'S' Division was" instead of "'S'
Division were", I believe.
I don't like this. I prefer the way my version reads.
*sigh*
And you're right. Oh, well. Fixed.
>The command van, for so long parked in a back street behind the Olympus,
had withdrawn a block or two. Its transformation from a dilapidated
wreck to a functional, if nondescript, vehicle had taken less than
thirty seconds: the rear wheels, apparently stolen long ago, slid down
I believe the colon can safely be substituted
with a semicolon in this case. After all, the
two connected clauses can be sentences on their
own.
Mm. Yes, okay. Fixed.
These unfamiliar names easily glaze by my eyes
and escape my notice. So far, since I've started
to C&C this in the middle of things (as I am
wont to), these "new-named" people mean nothing
to me. If this were to read as original fiction,
new readers who have just hopped in and gave
your lengthy fic a try (i.e., me) can easily get
lost with all the 'faceless' unfamiliars in this
chapter. An author _could_ make some effort in
making his original characters/'reintroduced'
characters (since, like Rei Hino/Itsuko, these
people could be renamed senshi for all I know) I
dunno, unique somehow.
So that's basically my proposal. Put a little
'human interest' into the story if you hadn't
already. Differentiate the many 'newcomers' in
terms of quirks, motivations and personality, so
they don't come off as cardboard character
cannon fodder. Of course, since this is already
the 11th chapter, you most probably have already
developed the many characters, both the familiar
and unfamiliar ones, in terms of character and
motivations. Still, it doesn't hurt to show the
'developments' in the later chapters so well
that even a first time reader who has stumbled
into the middle of things won't get lost with
all the names, ne? Just a suggestion.
True enough. But the middle of an action sequence is perhaps not the
best place for it.
>He nodded politely to a middle-aged woman as she walked past him into
the building. However, most of his attention was on the voice in his
ear. "Captain Murasaki reports he'll be with you in four minutes,"
Mitsukai reported over the commlink.
Nitpick, suggest: comlink or com-link
Either would have worked. But at this point I stick with the usage
from previous chapters. :)
>He was exaggerating, though, and he knew it. They wouldn't need to
surround the building; he was pretty sure he knew exactly where they'd
find their target. His eyes strayed to a window on the top floor.
He's a good captain, though. Instead of taking
chances, he'd rather take the "better safe than
sorry" route. At least, that's my impression of
him so far as I read this.
That's what I'm trying to show, yeah. Not having any kind of military
or law-enforcement background, I'm not always confident of achieving it.
Goodness knows what actions he might logically have taken, that I simply
never thought of!
>Itsuko pulled over to the side of the road, a few minutes later and
three kilometres away. "All right," she said. "What now?"
This is a _white_-haired Rei Hino now, eh?
That's only a cosmetic change, but I've got the
feeling that I may be reading a very different
kind of Rei Hino personality wise soon enough.
Well, she's a couple of thousand years older, which carries something of a
personality shift in itself. The short, white hair is by way of a disguise,
since she'd prefer not to be recognised as a historical character.
>"Oh, don't take on," said Itsuko quietly.
Er... "Don't take on"? What exactly does she
mean by "Don't take on"? Don't take on what?
Hmm. Unfamiliar idiom, I guess. Essentially, "Don't get upset" or
"don't get uptight."
>Bendis listened to them argue, and remained silent. She was thinking
about another time when she had spoken aloud without thinking, to a man
who had given her a fish. She thought about the Opals that had pursued
her and Artemis in the weeks which followed that moment of carelessness;
and she thought about the Opal in the warehouse yard, five days ago,
when Mars, Venus and Uranus had nearly been captured. She thought about
it all; and then she thought about what Artemis would say if he heard
that she had spoken in front of the people in the van. And she remained
silent.
Aw. Tsk. Great-granddaddy cat will be very upset
with her if he ever found out. Okay from the
"what happened before" and the detailed
exposition I just read, it'd seem that a.)
Itsuko and her two cats are being followed by
many different organizations, one of them the
main baddies, b.) Serenity has a church? ?_?,
c.) Bendis may have blown their cover, so the
new army-type threat is headed their way.
(a) Just one organisation: the Serenity Council (the government of Japan).
Itsuko & friends do not, at this point, know that the government is their
enemy; instead they believe that the enemy -- or at least one enemy -- is
the Sankaku Clans, a criminal group. At the same time, Hiiro and his team
(who are agents of 'S' Division, the government's security forces) have no
reason to believe that the government is up to no good. They are to some
degree pawns.
(b) The church of Serenity believes that the (deceased) queen was a goddess,
yes. Hey, she raised people from the dead, a bunch of times!
(c) It's more that they're after Bendis herself; but Itsuko and Artemis
don't know that.
Out of curiosity, just how old is Artemis here?
Like Itsuko/Rei, he's survived right through; so, however old he is in the
original series, add a couple of thousand. :)
Also, in light of these 'new' (new to me,
anyway) pieces of info, it has occurred to me
that this fic is actually one of those noveau-SM
fics that make use of more serious tones that
are typical of most SM fics done by a male
author, more often than not. Simply put, this is
a 'pure' SM fic that abandons canon feel of
preadolescent romance and comedy in favor for
more grave and serious
save-the-world-from-mystopia type of fics. Now
I'm not against such fics, it's just that I've
noticed that most SM fics follow this fanfiction
trend, and more than several SM fics probably
read a lot like yours. Fascinating, I say.
Hmm, well, I'm trying to keep a bit of both, you might say. But nothing but
"preadolescent romance and comedy" isn't enough to keep me interested in
writing this long, so...
>Hiiro's eyes flicked left, right.
Suggest: Hiiro's eyes flicked left to right
(yeah, I know that 'style' is the excuse for the
sentence construction, but I believe the
revision flows better)
"left, then right" reads better, I think.
"Orders from headquarters," said Mitsukai's voice. "Pull back."
Heh. That was amusingly convenient for Artemis and co.
Wasn't it just?
See my notes further down; there was a strong reason for the sudden
order to withdraw.
>At the sound of his voice, the other men in the corridor looked around.
One of Giniro's men rached up to touch the commset in his own ear.
One of Giniro's men reached up...
Huh. Wonder how that got past the spell-checker?
>All the same ...
All the same...
I put a space before and after an ellipsis, to the sake of legibility.
>They had been assuming that it was the cats who were being chased. But
she had to face the possibility that, if too much more attention were
"if too much more attention" sounds weird. You
have to choose: "too much attention" or "more
attention"
Yes.
>With a sigh, she lifted the top folder from her in-tray: the latest
draft of a new set of fishing quotas in the Osumi Strait. Simple
enough, but somehow it had ballooned to over three hundred pages.
Almost like this fic, eh? :P
Nasty ...
>She lifted the remote with a sense of relief. "Yes," she said
brusquely.
She had a sense of relief, but when she answered
the phone she was again suddenly impatient?
Eyng? ?_?
Er, that's sort of a good point. Will fix.
>But gradually, in the months that had followed, she'd come to realise
that a different, hidden kind of politics was going on all around her.
There were things that the other councillors kept from her.
I'm not familiar with the European spelling if
it is the Euro spelling (which is why I've been
breezing through 'realise', 'kilometres', and
the like), so correct me if I'm wrong--Isn't it
supposed to be "councilors" instead of
"councillors"?
I'm not sure if this is an American-vs-Commonwealth thing or not. Again,
my dictionary says that either is correct.
>Last week, for the first time, she had challenged the rest of the
Council. It had seemed a trivial point -- 'S' Division agents being
assigned to hunt for a lost pet
Heh. But one has to admit, that supposedly
trivial point was a very, very fishy and
suspicious one.
Yeah. 'S' Division were pretty puzzled by it, too, since their bosses
either didn't know or wouldn't tell what the order was for. The Senshi
connection took a while to unearth.
>They had _lied_ to her!
She turned away from the picture. Had she thought that she had a
>decision to make? No. They had made it for her. The only question now
was how to respond.
Hmmm. Interesting characterization of unfamiliar
character no. 2: The ol' realization of how real
world politics work. Like a ideological teenager
who has woken up to the grim realities of urban
life, so does she awaken to the fact that she
fails to see "underneath the underneath". Very
nice... At the very least, the captain and Ms.
Serabi's motivations and reactions are made
clear, giving them clear footing in this chapter.
This chapter is her first appearance in any detail, actually, so she got
a bit more of an introduction than she might otherwise.
>Later, after showing a pair of newsies into Sese's office, Sven closed
the door and waited for the interview to get under way. He gave it a
few minutes, then pulled out a mobile commset and dialled a number from
memory.
Not sure about this word either, but suggest "dialed" as opposed to "dialled."
And again ...!
These differences are all the same thing: whether or not to double a final
consonant before adding a suffix. I seem to be going for the doubled
version most of the time (I hadn't even noticed, before), but in most cases
it appears that either is okay. (Or the difference might be US/UK, in which
case I'm not really sure which is which.)
>"Well," Bendis said reluctantly, "I was just thinking. Sometimes a
person might keep something secret with the best of intentions. You
know? Only, once you've started doing that, it ... can be awfully hard
to stop it again. Without it seeming like a --"
Heh. Oh yeah. Nice way of segueing that part in the current debacle.
Ye-s. In fact Bendis is keeping other secrets from Beth, too. It will
probably not surprise you to hear that Bendis is a very young cat.
>Then she remembered that she had other worries. School was just ahead,
and she still didn't know what she was going to do when she met Nanako
and Eitoku. And that was unfortunate, she realised with a sinking
feeling, because Nanako was waiting for her at the gate.
Is it just me or are you using the word
'realise' a bit too much? There are many other
variations of the word you could make use of,
after all... understood, comprehended,
recognized, became conscious of or some such.
Just a nitpick, but just don't overuse the word
in the fic.
That's entirely possible. I have a number of stock phrases which I have
to control rigidly or I'll use them all the time -- eg "for a moment". I
hadn't noticed "realise," but I'll take a look through the chapter and see
if it seems to be over-worked.
Strangely enough, this is reading like an
original fic that incidentally has "Sailor Moon"
elements in it. Just as strange, I believe it's
a great read nonetheless, despite the fact. But
to clear up any confusion, just how much "Sailor
Moon" is left here in the fic and just how many
'original' elements are there?
My intention from the beginning was to have a mix of old and new
characters, in a completely new setting. Some of the "old" characters
are survivors from the days of Crystal Tokyo -- e.g. Artemis, Itsuko/Rei,
Sadako/Setsuna. Others are old characters reborn yet again -- e.g.
Miyo/Makoto (there'll be a few more of these, but they haven't appeared yet,
or haven't been revealed as such).
The setting is centuries after the fall of Crystal Tokyo. A dark age
followed the fall, succeeded in turn by a quick rebirth of civilisation
when complete printed records of the preceding ages were discovered.
My Third Tokyo, therefore, is largely based on early 21st-century technology,
though with some different directions taken. In particular, though, the
people of 4200 have explicit, detailed histories of the golden age of
Crystal Tokyo that came before. This sometimes gives them a ... different
perspective.
Because, as it is, it occurs to me that beyond
changing the "happy-happy joy-joy teenage love
theme with a li'l bit of serious world-saving
theme" of the canon source into the "post-silver
millennium, political intrigue/dramatic novel
theme" of your fic, you're basically just
writing an original fic using SM as a mere
backdrop with occasional canon character
namedrops.
There is certainly an element of that in it. I'm not sure that I'd call
that a flaw, though. A worthwhile fanfic has to go beyond its source
material, in one way or another, or it's essentially pointless.
It's not to say that the content of fic is in
any way lacking, it's just that, when I saw
"Sailor Moon" on the title, I was expecting
familiar ground. Sure, the "4200" leads me to
doubt the validity of my expectations, but
still... :P (sigh) Understand that, as a reader
of anime fanfic, there is certainly more
emphasis on the 'anime' than 'fanfic' in
consideration to my preferences.
But... this is still a good story. The drama
above? Though certainly unlike the light
romantic fare of canon Sailor Moon, it is nice
to read. The storyline, with its underlying
seriousness and wonderful storyline, is good.
It's just so different from Sailor Moon that it
had me wondering why the name "Sailor Moon" was
even introduced into the title. Perhaps to get
more readers to read what is essentially an
original fic? I dunno, but it seems to me like
'false advertising', if anything else. :P I
mean, what's the point of making a fanfic of SM
if it contains as little SM as possible, if you
know what I mean. To be succinct about it, this
fic should be published in FictionPress.net
instead of Fanfiction.net, I believe.
Bear in mind that the material up to this point in the chapter simply
hasn't had a chance to focus on the more SM-ish facets. We've been
concentrating on the continuing-from-the-cliffhanger bit, rather than
getting down to the waffy-teenaged-girls bit. Actually, the story is
just starting to get into that segment at the point when you made this
comment.
Again, familiarity with what has gone before would be a benefit. For
example, it might help to know that the reason that Beth and Nanako are
on the outs is that: (a) Beth is the new Sailor Venus, and has had her
life turned almost upside down by her new role; and (b) Beth had had a
major worship-from-afar crush on a boy whom she recently learned had
actually been going out with Nanako all along.
Yet, despite being such a spoiled brat/fan who
demands more senshi action and more than just
references to the series, this reads quite well.
The quality of the fic has nothing to do with
the fact that I feel it's not quite 'SM' enough.
The drama going on with Nanako and Beth?
Incredible and priceless. Still, the spoiled
brat/fan would find it preferable if one of the
more canon characters were cast to do this scene
instead of the two unknowns. As Joem hadranted
in his silly, self-righteous rant in the latest
ATFWH, " When you make a sequel you are
basically advertising it as "more of the same
but better". When you take a sequel that's so
completely removed from the original it might as
well be a different series, you're basically
trying to trick fans of the original into
watching something they may not have wanted to
watch otherwise."
True enough, and I've seen plenty of 'fics like that -- not necessarily
bad ones, either. In this case, though, I think you're overreacting. and
there's certainly plenty of Senshi action later on.
So is this bad or good? I'm not the judge of
that. There are people, and a _lot_ of people...
mostly males and non-shojo fans, to be sure...
who love this fic as it is, with the occasional
namedrop and SM backdrop. It's just my pet peeve
to see this kind of
not-only-an-alt-fic-but-basically-an-orig-fic-with-an-SM-tag-on-the-title-to-get-more-reader-attention
fic. Still, don't misunderstand, it's very, very
good. It's just not very SM, IMO. :) To your
credit, that's surprisingly the only thing that
bothers me about your story (because, from my
experience, wannabe orig series with a popular
anime/TV series tagged in its title generally
suck)
*shrug* The backdrop and namedrops are part of it. I think there's
quite a bit of the original material in it, too, though; it just hasn't
shown up much in the chapter to this point.
>"What's his favourite food? C'mon, you must know that, you've watched
him eat it a couple of dozen times at least. What's his best subject in
>school? What sports does he like?"
"He -- he likes --"
"You don't really know anything at all, do you? You watch him, and all
you see are your own fantasies."
"Shut up! Shut _up_!"
Hehehe. Like I said, this scene is excellent in
portraying underlying drama. And remember what I
said earlier about "these unfamiliar names that
I could care less about"? Well, I take it back.
Even if a reader were to stumble into your fic
in the middle of things, he can easily catch up
and get compelled to hunt for the earlier
chapters... Your quality of writing is superb
enough to keep even the most novice of readers
interested. Congratulations on that regard.
Thank you.
>Something seemed to crumple in Beth's expression. "Why?" she asked
bitterly. "Am I so stupid that I'm not worth considering?"
"No, Beth-chan. It's got nothing to do with that." Nanako took a deep
breath. "Eitoku-kun would never consider you because you are a Claver."
A what-er?
"So you get him because you're Japanese," Beth whispered. "That's ...
not fair."
So a Claver is... a new, post-Silver Millennium
word for
foreigner/American/Canadian/Dutch/European/French/etc.?
....
Hey, that's racist!
Not quite right, and the term is not in itself perjorative in Third Tokyo.
The Enclaves were the groups that managed to cling to a vestige of
civilisation after Crystal Tokyo fell. (It was they, not the native
Japanese, who discovered the historical records in the ruins of Crystal
Tokyo that launched the new renaissance.) Roughly a third of the population
of Third Tokyo is Claver or descended from Clavers. Beth, for example.
This being the case, year-4200 Japanese is much more open and multicultural
than Japan today.
That said, Eitoku's attitudes are definitely racist. One of the things
I was trying to do in this chapter was to point out that the race question
can be a lot more complex that many people think, though.
>"None of us is laughing at you, Beth-chan," Nanako said. "And you're
not unwanted. I swear. We're your friends. I --" She paused,
realising how that must sound. "I know you may not believe that right
now," she continued after a moment. "But I promise you --"
That's really hard to believe, with Nanako's
seeming bigotry and racist remarks. I mean, why
even bring up Beth-chan's ancestry if it's not
really an issue? Why bring it up if they really
are friends?
It's not Nanako who's the bigot, though; it's Eitoku. (Nanako is simply
stating the facts.) And even Eitoku's case is not necessarily a simple
one. Previous chapters have established that he is perfectly willing to
be Beth's friend. So is it racist of him that he would never fall in love
with her because of her skin colour?
'Would you want your sister to marry one?'
These are not easy questions, and I am suspicious of pat answers. So
I try to point the issues out in this chapter, without being dogmatic
about it. (For a different viewpoint, see Beth's talk with her mother,
later in the chapter.)
>Nanako frowned. "You don't approve of my friends?" she asked
dangerously.
"It's not that. It's just ... everyone always kept well away from
Iku-chan. And Beth-kun was a loner too. But you ... you were one of
the most popular girls in the class, once, until you started letting
them hang around."
Hmmm. Though I'll probably be as guilty as
Eitoku on being judgmental, he really is quite
the asshole. If Beth got to know him, _really_
know him, then maybe she will forget his little
infatuation. Love is blind.
Not how I see him, but a valid viewpoint, and I guess not incorrect.
>"That's _why_ I let them hang around," Nanako said icily. "_Because_
everyone always kept well away from them."
"I ..." He trailed off, his eyes widening. "Really?"
Extra space after the quotation mark, and extra
space after the word 'I'. On the other hand, it
may be a double space rule, but I thought that's
only applicable to the end of sentences, not
after ellipses, commas and some such.
Kind of refreshing to go back to grammatical points. :)
As before, I put spaces around ellipses, hence the first space. The double
space after the quotation mark is a sentence break, which I double-space.
>"Yes." Her voice was flat, emotionless. Inside, she felt so angry that
she wanted to hit him. "I might say the same thing about you, as well,
Shiomi Eitoku, though you were never quite as isolated as Iku-chan.
Now, are there any more personal confessions you want to hear, or is
this discussion at an end?"
Why does she want to associate with the unpopular loners anyway?
As she said -- *because* they're the loners. Out of an oddball sense
of injustice, perhaps. I may need to revisit this section to try and
get it across better.
>Silently, she eased the door open. The sound became clearer; and an
>instant later, she recognised it. The viddy was on.
What's a viddy?
TV set, basically. Terminology used throughout the story (like "commset"
and "newsie") to try and give a slight other-ness to the setting.
>A few steps short of the living room door, a floor-board creaked beneath
floorboard creaked beneath
Um. Not sure about this.
>Once she was outside, and the door safely closed, her smile widened.
"Silly cat," she repeated.
Hmmm. A seemingly extraneous scene if it were to
be taken at face value. I bet it's a
foreshadowing device, then.
Sort of. It's been implied in previous chapters that she may or may not
realise that Beth is Sailor Venus, and therefore exactly what Bendis is.
>"Very restrained of you. Let me see, now ... 'Since the cat we were
searching for has unexpectedly turned out to be a Moon Cat, we are of
course halting the search. 'S' Division would never dream of
interfering with the Senshi or their allies.'" Shiro laid the paper
back down with a scowl that matched Hiiro's. "In a pig's eye.
So why exactly do they want to get to the
Senshi? Why do their superiors don't want them
to get to the Senshi? Is it a future plot point
or a previously mentioned plot point in the
earlier chapters?
>From previous chapters. The Serenity Council (the baddies) were hunting
Bendis. They issued a directive that security forces were to look for a
cat matching Bendis' description -- though without identifying her as a
"moon cat" because they don't want to give away that they're anything but
a wise and benevolent elected government. Hiiro's team followed a lead
and discovered Artemis, but didn't report it because he wasn't the cat
they were looking for; and of course Artemis is historically a "good guy"
character. Later they also spotted Bendis and found out that Itsuko was
actually Rei. At that point they pretty much had to report it all in.
They went on to invade the Olympus building -- as seen in the opening of
this chapter -- to try and catch Bendis, which had been their assignment
all along. But when the Serenity Council heard what they'd uncovered,
the Council called off the raid because of the bad publicity, and are now
covering their own asses.
>"Something's not right here. The search would never have been ordered
in the first place if someone didn't have a pretty clear idea of what
they were after. And then there's this ..." Another piece of paper.
"Sailor Mars was seen in a battle at a music store last Thursday, but
the eye-witness descriptions don't match Hino Rei ... or Pappadopoulos
Itsuko. That may not mean anything, of course."
If it's mentioned at all in the narrative, then
it's almost sure to be of significance.
Foreshadowing and all that.
The Sailor Mars in question wasn't Itsuko. We've seen in previous
chapters that, while she still has her old henshin wand, Itsuko can't
transform any more. It's theorised that she "burnt herself out" in
the battle for Crystal Tokyo.
>Hiiro took the hint and left, not forgetting to send the new ADC in as
he went. His mind was on other things, though. Only moments before, he
had been thinking that the colonel was always straight. But now ...
[Medical leave, right. In a pig's eye.]
It seems that everybody's got something to hide
in this fic. Everybody has skeletons in their
closet. Multi-layered conspiracy goodness
abounds.
This is the chapter where a lot of that gets laid out in the open -- hence
the chapter title.
>He picked up a marker pen and coloured her hair in green.
Is this part taken from the Sailor Moon Live
Action show where the normal versions of the
Senshi are quite different from their Senshi
forms? ?_?
The wall was lined with pictures, hundreds of them: a sea of women, all
of them tall and slender and dark-skinned. Every one of them had long
hair, raggedly coloured-in green.
Sailor Pluto?
Yes. He ran into Sadako back in chapter 3, and she pulled a Shadow-like
trick to "cloud his mind". It's had unintended after-effects, though,
and he's gradually cracking up. He's hunting for her, without knowing
who or what he's hunting, or why ...
>But there was that note on her test paper. Most of the teachers didn't
bother any more. The note said, "Disappointing, as always." It annoyed
Dhiti.
Wow. It's a compliment and an insult all at the same time.
Hmm, nicely put. Hadn't thought of it that way.
>Miyo suppressed a grin. "Now that, I don't envy you." She glanced
"Now that, I don't envy you" sounds weird. It's
like you couldn't decided whether the sentence
should be "Now that, I don't envy about you" or
"That's why I don't envy you" or some such, so
you simply decided to combine both sentences
together.
Maybe it's one of those idiomatic things again; it seemed like a common
usage to me. "I don't envy your having to do such-and-such."
>"There has to be a way I can use this," she muttered.
>"Use what?" asked Miyo suspiciously.
"Oh. Sorry, Hayashi. Talking to myself." Dhiti gave her a superior
smile. "Sometimes I feel the need for intelligent conversation."
Heh. Cute. Still no correlation whatsoever to SM
as far as I can see, but cute.
Miyo is the reincarnated Makoto. Dhiti is a new character, the new
Mercury. Potentially as smart as Ami, but without Ami's academic
interests. Instead she's a sarcastic smartass who's virtually incapable
of resisting a funny line. Or at least a line that she thinks is funny.
The two of them are, in fact, best friends.
>"Oh, Hayashi. Don't be silly. Insulting you is what makes my life
worth living. You know that." She did the smile again; then, before
Miyo could start to take offence, she added, "Actually, I was thinking
I'm not sure again, but shouldn't "offence" suppose to be "offense"?
Either is correct. 'Twould appear that "offence" is the normal UK spelling.
>we could go downtown. You know, hang out. Eat junk food. Window-shop.
That kind of stuff."
Miyo stared at her. Then she reached out a hand to touch Dhiti's
forehead. "You don't have a temperature. Are you feeling well?"
"Well, I wouldn't want an ice-cream parlour to feel left out," Kin
mused. "Lead on, kemo sabe! You're paying, right?"
That came out of the blue. Personally, when I
use random Japanese words in my fics, (if those
_are_ Japanese words O_o), I make it the point
to make their meaning known through context
clues or through a handy-dandy (but
understandably annoying to some readers)
footnote at the end of the fic. In any case,
though I can surmise "kemo sabe" as some sort of
insult/nickname, I'm still curious as to what
they mean. So what do they mean?
Er ... it's what Tonto called the Lone Ranger.
(This is one of the above-mentioned "funny lines" that Dhiti can't resist.)
>"Of course it is!" Kin fell to her knees before Dhiti, and raised
shining eyes in adoration. "Teach us, Master Dhiti! Pour out your
Suggest: shining eyes of adoration
Um, no. She raised her eyes, which were shining, in adoration.
>"Aha! A touch, a touch, I do confess." Dhiti raised an imaginary foil
A... "touch"? Does she mean, "touche"? You're
not making up English terms, are you, fic?
This is a line from Hamlet. Act 5, scene 2: the duel between Hamlet
and Laertes (hence Dhiti's imaginary foil).
>"Kin! Kin-chan!" came a voice from off to one side. They looked about
>to see Liam, waving a hand in the air.
@_@ So many characters... None of them familiar
at all. ~_~ I feel as if I'm being left out
(more than usual, since I usually C&C in the
middle of large fic series). The feeling I have
is akin to that of a reader reading Sinfest's
"You had to be there" comic strips.
Another Claver (obviously, from his name). Minor character, at this
point. Kin's boyfriend.
>"Another ..." Dhiti frowned. "Who's Naru?"
Miyo gave her a bleak look. "Someone I used to know. A long time ago."
Well, that was a rather effective and thankfully obvious context clue. :)
...Hmmm. Ms. Sailor Moon retains her memories of the past, yes?
Makoto, rather than Usagi. Artemis tried to awake her memories of her
past life, back in chapter 4, but muffed it; she gained *perfect* recall
of *both* past lives -- Silver Millennium as well as the one we know.
This caused her problems for a while.
>"... Right." Dhiti hummed tunelessly under her breath for a second.
"Okay, then, we're not going to let that happen. Whatever it is. So
what _are_ you planning to tell Kin-chan? The truth?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Well, why not, anyway? Okay, okay, you don't have to glare like that.
Sheesh, Hayashi. So we'll think of a story to tell her, and she'll
probably pretend to believe it, and then everything'll be fine, except
that Kin-chan won't trust us any more. _That_ certainly sounds good."
Wow. If someone was eavesdropping on the two,
that person'll have no idea what the heck
they're hiding. That's good. I suppose it's also
common sense, but the funny thing about secret
identities is that in most TV shows/novels/misc.
media, they always had a tendency to hit the
reader/viewer/listener in the head with the fact
that their heroes are hiding secret identities.
Case to point is that, in a lesser fic, the
words "Senshi" and "Sailor Moon" would have been
said multiple times in Dhiti and Miyo's
conversation for no apparent reason. I always
found the tendency strange. The viewer knows it,
and the characters in the show/fic/whatever
knows it. Why state it aloud?
Actually, that didn't occur to me at all when I wrote it. The terms just
didn't come up. :)
>"Oh, come on. We don't have to tell her the truth, if you're so set
against it. Say you met them at the Olympus, or something. That's
almost true anyway. Take everyone out for ice-cream or a movie.
Suggest: ice cream
Hmm. Okay.
While we're at it, do you have a character list
of the new reincarnate identities of the senshi
in your webpage? If you do, can you mention the
URL in your footnotes? For the new readers' sake
and all.
Yes. It's at:
<http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon/fanfic/sm4200/sm4200a4.txt>
Not a bad idea to include the reference.
>"Yeah, yeah. Yock it up, Hayashi, enjoy it while it lasts. All the
(shrugs) Suggest revising 'yock' with 'yuk'.
Either would work, but I just like "yock" better in Dhiti's mouth.
>It had been just a few days before. The night she broke into Miyo's
house; she had been asked to deliver a message. She had promised to do
it -- promised the girl's own brother.
And she had lied.
Ah, another point of conflict. This is turning
into a veritable Senshi-of-the-future Soap Opera.
Well, everyone has their own motivations.
And I can never pass up an opportunity to sting them a little more ...
>Dhiti nodded shortly and headed for home. Her math results no longer
bothered her at all.
Nice way of capping off a scene. Damn, I wish I
had your ability to get into the characters'
heads. The scene development and character
development goes hand-in-hand, which is always
good.
Thanks.
>Hama Minoru was tall, dark-haired and lanky. He had an easy, cheerful
grin and a face that people trusted. He was popular in class. He was
intelligent. And none of these seemed to matter very much, when he was
with her.
Suggest dropping the comma after the word, "much". You don't need it.
Okay.
>He had known Suzue for three years now, at least as well as anyone knew
her. They had started out as simple acquaintances, and slowly drifted
into something more.�
'drifted' while technically correct in the
context of the sentence, connotes way too much
to 'drifted away' (a popular and very cliched
term), so I suggest you make use of another word
other than 'drifted.'
Been thinking about it, but nothing springs to mind. They just ...
drifted together and stuck. Any suggestions?
>The two of them had been going out regularly since then. They were
playing it very casual; they did not call it 'dating,' they did not talk
about love, and they had not kissed yet. But she did not object when,
>from time to time, he took her hand.
Well, ain't that typically shojo. You're proving
me wrong in my previous comments as this fic
progresses. :)
Aww.
(Well, the Liam-and-Kin scene later is the real 'aww' one.)
>Her religion was one of the outer layers, or the way
she made her own clothes. But who would have guessed that, beneath
that, she was a passionate bridge player? And that was nothing to his
surprise when he'd learned how she spent her Saturday afternoons.
The last sentence reads wrong. Suggest revision.
I'm guessing the "And that was nothing to his
surprise" part is the sore thumb that has made
that sentence stick out from the flow of prose.
Ye-e-s. I see your point (and actually I vaguely recall tinkering with
that sentence for some time, trying to get it right.) Will rethink.
Is "And that was nothing compared to his surprise" an improvement?
>"Well, the airline transport license is a little further down the road,"
she said dryly. Then: "Why is it hard to believe?"
Suggest: Then, she curiously asked, "Why is it hard to believe?"
That leaves two "speaking" verbs in the same paragraph, though. To
my eye, the "Then:" adds a beat to the speech -- a momentary pause --
which is all I needed.
>"What?" Suzue looked at him, confused, before realising he was joking
and looking away again. "Don't be silly." He suppressed a grin. Suzue
was one of those unfortunate people who simply had no sense of humour.
Sugeee. (taking notes) It's the subtle things
that make up the show, not tell... ne,
author-san?
I guess!
Though I will say that there are times to tell, not show...
>"It's okay," he said. The only answer he could give, of course.
Inwardly, he started to wonder. Suzue did not make friends easily.
It was one of those moments of great need,
apparently. I wonder which Senshi Suzue-san is...
Uranus.
>At that point, he realised what he was planning.
He shook his head in disgust. What was the _matter_ with him? Had he
actually been planning to spy on his girlfriend?
(shakes head) Well, Suzue-san's lucky to have
chanced upon joy boy as a boyfriend. There isn't
a dishonest bone in his wholesome, Disneyfied
body, apparently.
Isn't it refreshing to have *someone* nice, though? :)
>He started for home, shaking his head in disgust. If Suzue didn't want
to talk about something, well, she had the right. The least he would do
was trust her!
After all, it would be a hell of a world if people couldn't trust each
>other.
Hehehehe. You're really good at capping scenes off. Nice touch.
Thanks again. Trust and deception are pretty much the theme of the
chapter ...
>"Okay, okay," he replied, waving his free hand placatingly. "No fights.
Placatingly isn't a word. I know this suggestion
sucks, but suggest: in a placating manner. Or
just replace placatingly with a word that _is_
actually an adverb.
My dictionary disagrees with you. In fact, it lists "placatingly" as a
top-level entry, not just under "placate".
>Heaven forfend.
It's "Heaven forefend", I think. MS Word seems to think so.
Yet again ... either seems to be correct. But hunting around on the net,
I find that "forefend" seems to be "etymologically more correct" so I'll
change this one!
>Kin blinked. "Everyone tries to bribe me with ice cream," she said
plaintively. "You're all trying to make me fat." After a moment,
though, she gave him a twisted grin. "All right, buster, let's go.
You'd just better have a full wallet, though."
She complains, then does it anyway. Good way of
humanizing your characters, fic. ;)
Oh, come on. This is ICE CREAM!
>Then, somehow, they were together; and their first kiss was everything
that a first kiss should be.
It's like shojo, but more on the likes of
"Marmalade Boy" shojo than the wafer-thin,
shallow and trite popcorn fest that is "Kanon".
Um, is that good? I read Marmalade Boy, but it got rather cloying after
a while.
As the the line in question ... this is my "awww" moment of the chapter.
I'm allowed one; it says so right here.
>At first, still sunk in a pleasant daze, he did not quite realise what
had happened. He automatically reached for her to draw her in again.
She slapped his hands away. He stared at her.
"Why don't you just go join the Loonies?" she demanded. "They've
probably got a place for people like you."
"What?" he said, stupefied. "What?"
Eyng? ?_? So much for lighthearted romance!
"I'm not some puppet for you to play with, you know." She stood up
sharply, staring down at him for a second. There was a curious mixture
of anger and regret in her eyes. "Isn't it time you grew up a little?"
she said softly. Then she turned and walked away.
O_o
This will eventually make sense. In a few chapters. ^_^
C&C Synopsis of Part Two: Hmmm. Apparently Miyo
isn't Serenity. (shrug) Though it is tough to
read a fic in the middle of things, this is the
chapter that I came upon with, and knowing its
length, it'll be a long time before I read up on
the previous chapters. E-heh. :P The main topic
being discussed in this part is "Why do people
have to be so complicated?" I daresay the answer
to that is because it makes for better reader.
:) Usually it's one thing or the other in
fics... a multi-layered plot with flat
characters or a lack of a plot amidst very
interesting and very complex characters. You
actually have both in this story of yours! ^_^
I'm amazed how plot and character dance in
perfect harmony in this fic, so there's little
wonder why it had to be as long as it is.
More amazing is how the original,
non-reincarnated characters stand in equal
footing with the reincarnated characters in
terms of motivations and personalities.
Character motivations, character interactions
and the underlying main plot points were
discussed in deliberate detail, but not in a way
that would make the pacing drag and the prose
meander. You knew what you wanted to do and laid
things out in a nigh-perfect design. The way the
elements meshed together is truly exquisite. By
themselves, the plot 'ingredients' were already
high-quality, which is why it's such a delight
to see them all combined as one in perfect
harmony... It was sheer, delectable poetry. It's
a pleasure, nay a privilege to be able to give
feedback to an author who's obviously my
superior in writing skill and technique.
I blush. Especially after your earlier complaints! :)
C&C Synopsis of Part Three: More surprises in
store for me, a newbie reader of your fic... Iku
is _not_ the reincarnation of Rei Hino/Itsuko,
but is instead a replacement Mars. I didn't
realize that _that_ can be done Post Crystal
Tokyo.
Most of the current group of Senshi are "new" characters. I've left it
vague whether they're descendents of the originals or not; the important
point is that, with their predecessors dead or otherwise unavailable,
the "Great Cycle" turns to produce new Senshi. (Starseeds and the Galaxy
Cauldron are probably tied into it somehow, for all I know.)
The fight scenes were superb. It lent itself to
a little bit of suspense and bullet-fast pacing.
The monster of the week, as per usual in this
kind of fic, was a scarier and tougher than what
the anime SM could come up with. The stole
lives, not just dreams.
You have to remember that the ultimate enemy is the one that destroyed
Crystal Tokyo. It more or less has to be pretty nasty.
Oh, and a little correction in this paragraph:
Mercury and Mars nodded. Uranus took a deep breath, glanced about
quickly, and set off. The other two fell in just behind her. She did
not try to repeat Venus' jump to the balcony; there was a upward walkway
nearby and she aimed for it without hesitation.
The part about "Venus' jump" should instead be
"Venus's jump", because 'Venus' is not a plural
word. Even with the 's' letter ending, the
apostrophe-no-'s' rule applies only to plural
words that end with 's'.
On researching the matter ...
Sadly this seems to be true. All I can say is that it looks wrong to me
and I personally would never actually *say* (aloud) "Venus's".
*mumble* *mutter*
Okay, so the whole conspiracy thing with the
vitromacallit was handled quite well. And so was
the "Naru" situation. ^^; It gave me a chuckle
or two, and it did good in brightening up the
seriousness of the fic after such a difficult
and epic battle without being awkward or out of
place. *coughayashinoceresanimecough*.
You've lost me there; haven't seen it.
It's a well-placed comedy/happy ending piece,
though such along fic (arguably worth several
_normal-sized_ chapters) wasn't through yet, oh
no. This is a very detailed fic. Heck, even
Artemis gets a little dramatic snippet/dream
sequence of his own. Everybody gets a change to
get rec'nized in this fic.
That, of course, is one of the reasons the chapters get so damn long.
My earliest impressions of the fic was that of
an originalish fic that uses the SM label to get
more readers to read it. But after reading it as
a whole I have to revise my statement a bit.
This is, I believe, how a fanfic should be done.
Nothing is trite or hackneyed about this fic at
all. Everything reads fresh, the prose and
narrative is superior anything I can come up
with, so obviously I can't comment all that much
about it, and even though it certainly reads
very differently from the canon source, it's
this uniqueness that sets it apart makes it very
effective. Another quote from Joem: "Many times
people don't like change, even if it's for the
better." The 'change' you made for this fic? It
was for the better, people be damned.
Glad you changed your mind! And thanks, enormously, for the kind words and
for the thought and effort you've put into this. As you might guess,
detailed C&C, especially for a piece this big, is hard to come by. (I
don't suppose you'd care to pre-read the next chapter? Er, when it's
finished. Which it isn't. Yet.)
Simply put... wow. That's about it. What a
novella for a chapter. :) Please, please, please
do keep on writing. I'll be looking forward to
more of your work. Abdiel out.
What can I say? I don't work very fast, these days, but I am still working.
There's about 15500 words of chapter 12 done (nearly half the length of
chapter 11). The story is still interesting in my mind. I'll finish it
off ... eventually.
Cheers,
Angus