Hi again! Well, I polished of Usagi is Dead the other day and I've had a
bit of time to think about it. I'm afraid that I'll be giving you more
of a general reaction to the work as a whole than any specific parts;
hopefully it'll still be useful.

There are a lot of things I liked about the fic. I had to really
distance myself at some of the visceral traums that show up, but I did
it.

I might as well get my harshest criticism out up front. I thought the
entirety of the future-set parts did not work. I saw someone else's
comment about the story losing focus after the first dozen or so parts,
and I can't wholeheartedly agree. Given the scale and scope of the story
you were working with, I don't have a problem with having bridge
episodes that stop and develop things further. It worked for Babylon 5
and Fushigi Yuugi, it can work for you too. <g>  But, as I said, the
Saturn plot was just too far away from the main action.  Everything that
it accomplished with respect to the modern events could have happened in
the present, just in a remote location. It needlessly put the characters
into two event tracks, and while you did use it to foreshadow the
cataclysm ... it just wasn't that important.

I got the feeling you genuinely wanted to explore Souchi & Hotaru ... I
think it would have been better to write a side-story, perhaps focusing
on the events after the cataclysm.  Possibly, and this is just me
second-guessing you from the author notes, when you deleted the rape
scene, you weakened the Hotaru arc, and what might have stood on it's
own ... no, it would have just been more of a distraction if it were
stronger. The Naru-Millenia material was your real underscoring theme,
Usagi in Limbo was a distraction/red-herring, the youma Usagi was the
villain /test the inner senshi action.  The Hotaru stuff just didn't do
it for me.  And it made Usako's identity even more confusing. I still
don't get which one is who, between Serena, the 4P ESM and Usako the
healer.


On to more praise-oriented comments. I thought the Miko material was
very innovative. I've thought about the elemental sceme of the senshi
like that but never really went ahead and played with it in my mind too
much because I don't really see Minako as an Air type, and once I found
out the Taoist system (wind, wave, wood, flame, metal) using the 4
western elements just worked for me again. Though I thought that in the
context of matching the mikos and bringing in the Asteroid senshi, it
was a good framework. (BTW: Shouldn't the Asteroid senshi be the
equivalent of 2nd refrain? I mean, their "planets" ARE in the middle of
the system... <g>  I know, you defined 3rd refrain as negative/mind so
they probably do fit. I just haven't seen but 2 Amazon Quartet episodes
of Super S).

I thought Naiad worked well right out of the gate. A lot of the things
that I see fanfic authors piling onto Pluto got dropped onto Naiad
instead, and when those character elements showed up in Setsuna, I never
knew if they were actually hers or Naiad's manipulations. I also liked
that Naid re-incarnated as a result of the events. It showed a bit of
real character growth for her, I thought.

Ami. Well, she died nobly suppressing Mieste Kiele and had great special
effects as she went. <g>  However you've taken the Queen Bitch title
away from Michiru. Hmm. Co-queens? <g> Her mother's death in the
Cataclysm felt like a real loss. Good tragedy there.

Naru's identity at Gaea was so over the top, I loved it.  The way you
consistently built the cycles of 3x4 up and topped them with the
revelation that Galaxia and Millenia (Millenia ... I just keep thinking
of the old Captain Harlock / Galaxy Express /Queen Millenia continuity!
I almost thought Homeworld would turn out to be La Metal! <G>) weren't
light and dark (and who'd really believe Galaxia as Light anyway?) but
Fire and Water and that there were 2 missing people in the set.

Umino tho, really gave me a problem. I mean ... I think you need to
explain why all the mikos and senshi are female (except Sailor
Sentinel--obviously he was your foreshadowing/legitimization for
Ascentia) but one of the original 4 was male.

Frankly, once it was known Ascentia was male and was white-haired as
Astute, I was guessing he was Prof. Chronos.  Er, Tomoe. ^_^  My friends
have corrupted my mind. Then again, they just finished the dubbing of
the first 4 eps of Super and yes, the went with Prof. Chronos. But I
digest. er. digress. Anyway...)

But Umino as Ascentia wasn't too unexpected ... just way hard to
believe. Though Naru never showed any weird abilities other than be
pointed at by Nephrite's crystal and being able to pull some youma
thorns out of him and Umino was even more mundane. If you'd just brought
him into the story action and just had hm doing a little something ...
once he recognized Naru while he was Astute it was all over. (Or was
that when Galaxia said Ascentia wa a man? Well, possibly bells went off
both times.)

The door opening scene was good. (Oh, and I loved the 3 names you used
to round out Galaxia's quartet--they worked well). I thought
restored-(more or less)-to her right self Galaxia was well done. You
basically had to invent an imperious yet semi-approachable personna and
I thought it worked well. [I mean, it's not like she was wearing gloves
and carrying a clutch-purse! <g>]

I thought Jupiter's telekinetic attack was just way too much of a
surprise. If it had actually worked it would actually have been deus ex
machina. Heck, I always figure she should have been an outer senshi
anyway!

I really felt sorry for poor Mamorou and THANK YOU for having him push
the Pink Sugar Dem--er, Princess away. How DID he get roped into
supervising the Usagi factory? How did the City interact with him before
it had Usagi clones? And this is pretty vulgar to ask but did the dna
come from the resonator on earth's sleeping with her? She made a point
of blurting that she'd slept with him after the revelation of the
resonator. And of course Naid's "helpful intervention" made it run amok,
which seemed stupid of her -- so of course it was part of Milennia's
plan. That was good.

You know what the resonator sequence reminded me of? The arc of Marvel
comics' X-men called "Inferno" where New York became imbued with demonic
essence and mailboxes started eating people, the  and things like that.
A bit like city planning by H.R. Giger.

I had heard someone once comment that though we know about Crystal Tokyo
being there in the 30th century, there's no guarantee that all the
senshi will be in continuous life until then. Doing a story like that's
a big chore and of course, you can't let on where you're going with it.
<pauses> I bet some people have still not caught onto that about UID.
It all kind of meshed for me when her soul went into the blasted ground
and planted itself like a seed, thus sort of bringing the Eternal City
into existence AS Crystal Tokyo. In a way, it's going to bring together
all the components of the solar system-- the elemental energy the senshi
had tapped, and the energy that was discarded as being too unwieldy.

Frankly, the several comments made about the system not behaving itself
just said to me that they'd fucked up the Harnessing; when I saw a whole
pocket dimension that was made from leftovers ... I thought, "what a
waste!!"

Nit picks:
* What were the starlights doing with Galaxia? They serve Princess
Kakyou ... sure if you'd had her there doing the "i am the queen, you
are the Empress" thing it would have been all right.

*AniMA-mates. "Anima" as in animal spirit, obviously, not ani- as in
animated. And I really wish you'd used #5, Heavy Metal Papillon. Of
course, that works for the Taoist scheme but blows the western 4 element
group right properly away. <g>  [Papillon was Fire, Crow Air, Siren
Water, Cat Metal and Mouse Wood--probably] (Now see, if you'd cut out
the flash forward parts, they could still have been in Limbo with Usagi
and reformed only just before the Cataclysm and Sailor Teleported to
Earth at just the right time...)


Did I mention how truly interesting I thought the miko concept was? I'm
doing planning on a fic where Sailor Moon & the inners visit an alien
world that needs their help and they discover the native senshi are a
bit different from them. There are DK general-types, uncorrupted, and
I'm calling them "Guardian Senshi" and I'm not sure yet if they're going
to have true elemental affinities & powers or more generic magical
abilities. They are linked also to the 4 winds & the seasons -- Spring
is a healer, Autum is a bard, etc..  The villains are probably going to
be weird, corrupted senshi. Not like the anima-mates tho, more like
youma senshi. And there is an order of fire priestesses running around,
they know certain secrets about the senshi--now I think they're a
little  like your Mikos.  So, anyway, it was nice seeing some ideas for
DIFFERENT take on senshi.

Well, that's all I have to ramble on about. I wish I could have caught
the story earlier and given you more specific criticism as it was being
written. I should probably have re-read it before sending this off but
frankly, my head would probably have exploded. @_@;;

Good luck,
looking forward to more SIU.

Matt

--
*==============================================*
        Carpe Noctem ~ Seize the Night
    http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mredding/
             for the Castle of Night
  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mredding/fsc/
        for net.Tokyo, home of the FSC!
*==============================================*