From: Scott Pollert
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 1998 12:28 AM

Last things first:

In conclusion, please don't regard this as a flame. I
realize that I rant a bit here, but it was never meant
to be insulting.

Goodness, I never took it as a flame, and I never took it as insulting.  You
were just giving me some honest criticisms.

Personally, whenever I see statements at the beginning of a fic to the
effect of "Flames will be ignored", my mouse strays towards the delete key.
If the author doesn't have the courage to face up to negative criticism
(however it's worded) then I don't have a lot of respect for their work.

I *always* encourage "flames".  One of the worst flames I ever got cursed me
up and down and ended with "May God have mercy on your soul."  I wrote back
to the guy and actually got into a bit of a dialogue with him over his exact
problems with my story (Appearances).  We ended up being quite civil to each
other, especially when I agreed that the way certain characters are
portrayed in Appearances is not how I would like to see them portrayed
either.  :)


Now, on to the C&C itself:

At 11:02 AM 6/30/98 -0500, Richard Lawson wrote:

Real interested in reactions to this one.

And hoo-boy, I've got one here...

but I'm left with little to no respect for this version of Mamoru.
The idea of sleeping with someone under such circumstances just
seems wrong, wrong, wrong to me.

Wrong, but completely human.  People have done far worse for a lot less
justification.

I admit that when I was given the task of Ami+Mamoru=Setsuna, I was stumped.
How do you justify either one of them falling into such a relationship?
This was the best I could come up.  Weak, I admit, but at the same time it
does serve a couple of purposes beyond the obvious need of producing
Setsuna:  it shows that Ami, Mamoru, and Usagi are all quite human, and
quite capable of making some quite ghastly errors.  Perfection would make
them very boring characters.  :)

Secondly, why do none of the girls directly confront Usagi about her
change in attitude?

Well, they do.  Just off-camera.

I *did* write a scene where Rei confronts Usagi with her behavior.  Lots of
righteous Rei anger in that one.  :)  The problem was that I couldn't fit it
in with the lemon.  Each part of the lemon corresponds to a part of the
story of Mamoru and Ami.  I couldn't find a place to slip in the Rei/Usagi
scene.  So I ditched it and transfered some of the arguments into Usagi's
self-denoument.

Others have commented that this leaves to a sense of something missing in
Usagi's turnaround, so I'll see if I can't wrangle it back in.

Finally, my last problem with this fic is the role of Pluto and the
apparent role of time itself.

<snip>

We are, or at least I am, left with the impression that poor
Ami has been callously manipulated and used by Setsuna to bring
about her own creation.

Er... and why is that, exactly?  Pluto doesn't appear until *after* Setsuna
has been conceived.  Pluto played absolutely no part in her parents' coming
together.  She just watched and waited until she could end the circle and
begin it again.  But at no time did she play with anyone's minds or
emotions.  I'm a little curious as to where you got the impression that she
was.

Again, I have a problem with this and it seems to suggest precisely
what Usagi fears. Namely that there is nothing that can be done by
the Senshi or anyone else to change the future, that the future is
already carved into stone simply because it, like the past, has
already happened. Maybe that's intentionally conveyed, so I guess
I'll just say that I don't like it.

Heh.  I don't necessarily like it either.  All I can say is that while
certain events are carved in stone, it's the getting there that's all the
fun.  And really, very little about the future is relayed to any of the
modern-day heroes; they know about the existence of Chibi-Usa, Endymion, Neo
Queen Serenity, and Crystal Tokyo.  That's about it.

It also provided me with a convenient motivation for Usagi to adopt
behaviors Mamoru would find abhorrent.

My personal bias is toward having the fairy tale of Sailor Moon
*stay* a fairy tale.

I can understand and appreciate that.  My own interest in anime has always
been into the more serious side of people and relationships.  That's why I
take inherently silly stories like Ranma and Nuku Nuku and produce serious,
sometimes somber fics from them.  It's what *I* like to read, and it's what
*I* look for in any manga or anime I see.  I realize, however, that other
people's interests may be radically different.  :)

Scott

Thanks ever so much for the comments, Scott.  They were quite helpful.

-Richard