It's been a long, long time since I've done this... where was that C&C
disclaimer again? Ah, here we go:
Standard C&C Disclaimer: All the below is my only occasionally useful
humble opinion, my only occasionally correct grammatical and spelling
corrections, and/or my only occasionally funny humor.
Adam Leigh wrote:
She was amused by the Entity floating in the mists. He was a
fool, of course. She was always amused by the fools. Not for their
ineptitude, not for their chaos, but for their arrogance. The fools
were always so confidant in their ability, even in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I'm not certain there's any need to refer to Jadeite as "the Entity"
rather than "the person" or some such here. In any case, lower-casing
Entity would probably be a good idea.
The Entity before her was a unique fool, one who's faults had led
to the downfall of his compatriots across not one, but two lifetimes,
and ultimately had been banished to a world with no time, no progress,
nothing for him to fowl up again. All the fun had be stripped out of
him.
a unique - an unique
fowl - foul
had be - had been
Also, blaming Jadeite for the Dark Kingdom's failure is a little unfair
- the other Generals did their share of screwing up also.
The canon on the Silver Millennium is vague enough that you could make
that work, but it's not really implied. (I don't think we even see the
Generals during the flashback - could be wrong, though.)
When the panic had passed and the Entity felt safe he would
continue to breath without concentrating, he looked around. They were
upon a beach of red sands before a mountainous volcano spewing a
gentle black cloud into a yellowish/brown sky. Higher into the sky he
could see the moon, but it was wrong, closer. Not the moon he knew,
and yet again, a moon that was not unfamiliar. Then he noticed the
other one.
I don't think present-day Mars has any active volcanoes. Could always
be wrong.
The Entity wryly wished his antagonistic ally were around when he could identify
nothing but Taurus.
This sentence could use rewriting - as written the last he refers back
to the "antagonistic ally."
Suggest:
"The Entity could identify nothing but Taurus, and he wryly wished his
antagonistic ally were around."
"Where am I?" he asked, almost in trance.
"Mars," came the curt reply.
A deep breath. "Should I ask how I can breathe?"
She smiled and a chill ran down the Entity's spine as if he would
have felt safer if she was angry than if she was glad. "You were
taught, long ago, how to breathe on the nine worlds and their moons,
which works even now in this mana-deficient universe."
It seems to me that a Jadeite suffering from partial memory loss would
find breathing on Mars unusual.
"Oh, just one more game," whined Usagi. She had another 100 yen
coin in her hand and was about to slot it into the Sailor V game
before Naru called her. Sailor V was one of the coolest games, in
Usagi's opinion, she just had to find time to play it between school,
meetings with Ami and Rei about the Dark Kingdom, eating, sleeping,
arguing with her parents, getting revenge at Shingo, and fighting
against Jadeite.
I think the comma after opinion should be a semicolon. It might be
better to split it into two sentences entirely.
Surprisingly, a tall, uniformed man with long wavy brown hair was
waiting there in the shadows (which, of course, is easily done since
most of the kingdom was covered in darkness).
The parenthetical comment is unnecessary, and should be in past tense.
Suggest:
"...in the shadows, which was easily accomplished since most of the
kingdom was covered in darkness."
He often imagined what his body might be doing all that time,
which was rarely very much at all. He figured that it was probably
more than simply taking the train home and then lying down in bed.
"more than likely simply"
Sailor Moon gasped for breath as she surfaced from the bay. The
flaming wreckage of the airplane lie all across the runway and on the
wings of the other two planes positions just at the edge of the tarmac
before the water.
"of the airplane lay"
"the other two planes' positions"
The presence was strong, different than he normally felt in his
manor. Not Zoicite or Kunzite, perhaps even stronger than Beryl
herself, although he found that hard to believe as Metallia herself
could be the only one who fit that category and she would no sooner be
walking around than Jadeite become queen of the Dark Kingdom.
Should probably capitalize queen there.
Also, if Jadeite has gained this much power, there's no need for him to
go through the plan he did - he'd be more than powerful enough to simply
overwhelm the Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen.
Nephrite got up and looked around. After a glance or two he spotted
the figure standing beneath the stained glass window and apparently
with his arms crossed. He wondered if he should be respectful to the
stranger who could probably separate his head from his body with a
thought and decided to simply wait and let the new comer initiate
contact.
"new comer" - "newcomer"
"A wise decision," came the voice, and all too familiar to
Nephrite. His brain completely rejected the conclusion, however, and
decided he just sounded similar to him. "Even I'm not sure how I want
others to act towards me now," the figure (who couldn't be HIM)
continued.
I'd change the parenthetical to "- it couldn't be HIM -"
"Oh yes," said Jadeite as his eyes flared and a halo of silvery
light surged around him. "I took every last bit of energy from her."
Nephrite's eyes widened as Jadeite laughed and then vanished
completely.
Oh, so he doesn't gain the power until afterward.
Still... Sailor Moon at this point really isn't that strong. Even at
the end of the season with the Ginzuishou, she still is only barely able
to defeat Metallia/Beryl. I'm dubious that draining her energy would
give Jadeite quite this much of a boost - enough to surpass Nephrite,
sure, but not enough to be on the same sort of scale as Metallia.
The public library in Elyria, Ohio is not very distinguishing from
any other collection of books in a tall building in a decently
populated city.
"not very distinguishing" - "not very distinguished"
Also, all this should really be in past tense.
What really makes the library different than most others is the
presence of the second sub basement on which the elevator doesn't
stop, the stairs don't all go to, and the ladies at the front desk
couldn't direct you towards.
"the library" - "this library", perhaps?
I'd do:
"the stairs don't all go to" - "to which the stairs don't all go"
It's in this second sub basement that
Aurora Sayre spends most of her time, pouring over reference material
that only one in a thousand has probably ever heard of before and even
fewer still believes is real.
"still believes" - "still believe" if you stick with present tense.
She's a small girl, probably no more
than five feet tall, and wears long dresses in all the in-style shades
of brown and green and always carries with her a large bag from which
no matter how much she takes out of it, it never seems to get less
full. She keeps an old, beat up pair of brass rimmed spectacles,
which don't seem to be her prescription since she's always squinting
when she reads. And read she does, from dawn till dusk, and let's
herself out at night after the library closes.
"and let's" - "until she lets"
This is considered a draft, and I would greatly appreciate any and all
comments relating to story, characterization, grammar, punctuation,
and story mechanics such as pacing and tone. Drop me a line at either
of the e-mail addresses below or simply reply to this story.
This story is intended to be written in about 13 chapters.
All right, other general comments:
1) I'm sure you have an answer to this, but what's Sailor Pluto, both
"present" and "future", up to during all this? It's more or less her
job to stop things like this from happening, so it might be a good idea
to hint in the first scene at how she's been dealt with.
2) On a related note, the whole "time rewinding"/going back into your
past self's body isn't really consistent with how time travel is
presented in Sailor Moon R. Then again, it might be pretty hard to
reconcile Sailor Moon R-style time travel with this plot line, some you
might be better off ignoring it.
3) It's really too early to say with absolute certainty, but here's
just a preemptive warning - you're probably going to have to work very
hard to avoid falling into the "Annoying New Character" trap here. The
first of the two new characters is already irking on me a little - the
'trans-dimensional vixen of destiny' bit particularly seems a bit too...
cute, I guess is the word.