On Thu, 3 Apr 1997, Richard Lawson wrote:

This story has none of the sweeping drama of a Davies or a Biles.

	People who are still alive should not have their last names used
as nouns.  It tends to make some of us ... nervous.

"What the hell is that?  What's going on?"

"Help us!  Brace me, hold on to me!"

"I'm okay!  I... I just...."

"Grab my hand!"

"I'm trying... argh...."

"Don't let go!  Don't you dare let go!"

"It can't get me, whatever it is!  I won't...."

"The beam is about to break!  Push off, jump, do something, quick!"

"Whaddya think I've been trying to do!  I almost...."

*CRACK*

"Oh my God...."

"NO!"

	Well, that was awfully confusing.  Granted, one suspects that that
was the point.  But a little more indication of who the players are --
Ranma and Akane, ne? -- would be nice.

Jadeite was dead.  

He found it terribly inconvenient.

	Oy.  Richard, you've stumbled onto THE cliche of Sailor Moon
fanfiction.  (Okay, one of THE cliches, the other ones including making
new Sailor Senshi for the Earth and Sun ...)  Yeah, I know I did it, and
that makes me look like a hypocrite for coming down on it ...

But even in death, in this nether dimension between dimensions, Jadeite
was still the First General.  This was not defeat, just a setback.  He
gathered his power and waited.

	Erm.  First General is not really a title, per se.  It's more of a
statement of fact -- he's the "First General" to appear.  His power is
actually substantially less than any of the others.

And then, the prize of prizes had come to Jadeite: Beryl herself, passing 
through on her way back to the Negaverse, having been defeated by the
Moon Princess and her Crystal.  Jadeite intercepted her, offered her his
obeisance as was her due, and then absorbed her power.  The fight had
been an epic one, for even as weakened as she was, Beryl was a formidable
opponent.  But her will had been broken in the fight with the Moon
Princess, and Jadeite's will had only grown stronger.  He defeated her,
and absorbed her power, and learned joyful things.  The Sailor Scouts had
been defeated - killed except for the Moon Princess.  And surely the
Princess herself would be wearied and saddened by the high cost of her
victory.

	Okay.

	First of all, *if* you are being completely true to the dub, then
none of them died -- they were just imprisoned in the Negaverse.  Since
this is DUMB -- "Day of Destiny" is beyond any doubt the DUMBEST episode
of the dub ever aired -- most writers who use the dub elect to seamlessly
integrate the events of the first season climax (I will not use the phrase
"death episodes", it is the sort of thing Beavis and Butthead would say)
into the dub.

	In the original first season climax, all four of the Sailor Senshi
die in episode 45.  Then Sailor Moon confronts Dark Tuxedo Mask and Queen
Beryl, managing to bring him back from the darkness just before he gets
offed by said Queen.  Beryl merges with Queen Mettallia (the Great
Negaforce of the dub), and Sailor Moon has her final confrontation with
her as the Princess -- calling the spirits of the Sailor Senshi back from
the grave to aid her.  She defeats Beryl.

	And then, because even fairy tales can end sadly, she dies.

	But because miracles happen, she and her friends are reborn again,
without any memories of their true nature.

	The events that you describe in your story aren't like either of
those, Richard.

Serena scowled at her.  She wanted to be through with the locket and the
Crystal and being the Moon Princess (who would want to be the Princess of
a dusty gray hunk of rock anyway?) and especially Sailor Moon.  She never
had enjoyed a single minute of being Sailor Moon.  She spent a lot of
that time scared out of her mind.

	Not true.  There have been plenty of moments that she has enjoyed
being Sailor Moon, and she is more or less cured of her "I just wanna be a
normal teenager" syndrome mid-way through the first half of R.  (In the
second half, after the end of DiC's dub, there's an episode where she
admits that she's grown up a lot -- "Before, I could have said `I'm
hungry!  I'm scared!  I wanna go home!' -- but I can't do that anymore.")

Darien spoke softly, with a rhythm that took Serena a moment to realize
he was quoting something:

"But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, 
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness."

	<Rolls eyes>  Quick poll -- who saw THIS coming?  (If he calls her
"Odango no onna", I'm leaving.)

Serena sighed in relief, thankful that everyone was alive and apparently
well.  She gave Raye a reassuring smile.  Raye smiled back before
remembering to scowl. "Where are we?  Did you bring us here?"

	Good characterization, here.

The creature's energy did something curious to her as she began to black
out.  For a moment, she was in sync with the creature and saw it come
into focus.  She was mildly surprised by its form.  It looked very much
like a boy, a teenager not much older than she was.  It had long, dark
hair that it kept bound in a braid.  It wore a red, silk, Chinese-style
shirt and black pants.  Despite the pain and anger on its face, it looked
fairly handsome.  Not as handsome as Darien, of course.  No one was as
handsome as Darien.

As she slid into unconsciousness, she apologized to Darien and reassured
him that she would never toss him aside for a youma.  No matter how cute
it was.

---

Ranma Saotome sucked the cut on his hand.  He was having a very bad day.

	Okay, this I *didn't* see coming ...

	I hate dimensional travel crossovers.  They always feel like ...
cheating.  Think about it -- if there are infinite dimensions, then (as
Niven so graphically demonstrated in "All The Myriad Ways") what is the
point of anything, since any event not only could have gone all the ways
that it could have gone, somewhere it DID.

Ranma guessed that 'youma' meant those demons he'd seen earlier.  "There
are hundreds of them there!"

	Given that Youma is a Japanese word meaning demon, that would be a
very good guess on Ranma's part.

Her eyes met his.  "Are you all right?"  Her voice was different.  She 
spoke with a deliberate cadence, carefully enunciating each word.  It
sounded almost... regal.

	Again, good characterization, very true to the way Ms. Moore (I
think) portrays Serena in her princess state.

The red-shirted man fell to one knee, still keeping his arms upraised and 
absorbing the blow of the beam.  Serena was smiling almost savagely.

	Bad characterization.  She NEVER does that.

He reminded himself to thank Serena, whoever she was, the next time he
saw her.

	And I REALLLLY hate stories that end with the protagonists
forgetting that anything happened.  If nothing happened, what was the
POINT?

	Okay.  It was a fairly good story, even though you

	a) used THE CLICHE.
	b) used dimensional travel (and that may getcha another "Gee, this
is strangely similar to --" ticket, this time for similarity to LaShawn's
Ranma/SM crossover ...)
	
	On the whole, this story merits a B+.