On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, Richard Lawson wrote:
Nuku Nuku fanfic! Sugoi! So few of these that aren't crossovers and
the like.
Er... (sweatdrop) It's not technically a crossover yet, as the only
"foreign" element is Steven Cornett's alien invasion, but it will be, I'm
afraid. I forgot that the "Seven Samurai of Anime" multi-author
multi-crossover isn't exactly notorious yet. My fault; my apologies.
Minor note: I always make my comments as I'm reading the story for
the first time. So this contains my reactions as well as any grammar
notes etc.
And very glad I am to have them, too.
"No, really, Arisa," she said to her officemate, who was
lining up a dart at a poster-size blowup of an attractive girl
with long pink hair wearing a high-school uniform.
Pink? I'm not sure I would call it pink. Scarlet? Purple? Red?
The hair *is* kinda of variably colored. But I don't think it's ever
really "pink". The figurine I have on my desk (I'm looking at it now)
is definitely red.
Well, it looks pink to me, but I've been accused of having trouble with
colors in the pink-to-purple range before... fuchsia, perhaps?
"Bring me the NK-1124."
Kyoko and Arisa glanced at each other. "You mean Natsume
Atsuko?" Kyoko asked carefully.
"Nuku-Nuku?" Arisa chimed in.
Minor characterization note: Arisa and Kyoko are among the last to
grant Nuku Nuku any humanity. They usually refer to her as "the
android".
Yes. This was supposed to be another clue that Akiko's not in her right
mind, as Kyoko and Arisa wouldn't refer to NN as "Nuku-Nuku" or "Atsuko",
but Akiko would, and they know that... but if I'm having to explain that,
I did it wrong. I'll try to fix this.
"Oh, please, Ryunosuke, can I?" she pleaded. "I've
been good for a whole month-- well, almost." She
guiltily recalled The Incident With The Soda-Vending
Machine.
Hehehehehe. Very nice.
Some things are best left to the imagination. :)
Arisa watched in disbelief from the cab as Nuku-Nuku sailed
over her head and landed behind her.
Dunno if "disbelief" is the right word; Arisa's seen her do this kind
of stuff before. Perhaps something more along the lines of "Arisa
blanched as Nuku Nuku..."
mmm, yes. I'll try to word this better.
Arisa recovered her senses and staggered out of the smashed
Spider. "What a mess," she groaned, surveying the wreckage.
Nice battle between Nuku Nuku and the Spider. Well-choreographed.
Thanks. It looked pretty good on the screen inside my head. :)
Kyoko watched, dumbfounded. "She's crazy," she said with
feeling. Arisa nodded. "I wish I was that crazy," Kyoko added.
Arisa nodded again.
Heh. Again, very nice.
Heck, _I_ wish I were that crazy, sometimes...
"Surrender before we get hurt," Arisa added hopefully.
:D :D :D :D :D
This *sounds* like an oft-used line, but it's the first time I've
heard it. :)
Well, it's not what Arisa meant to say, but I love Freudian slips. :)
"I need to modify your systems a little."
"Um... will it tickle, Papa-san?" Nuku-Nuku asked guardedly.
"No, I can switch you off while I do it."
There was a brief silence.
"Nuku-Nuku would rather it tickled, Papa-san."
Heh. Another neat moment. You're quite good at these.
*blush* Thanks. I was thinking: what's being switched off like for
Nuku-Nuku? If I were an android, I think I'd avoid it at all costs.
"Child, I will not bandy words with you."
"That means I can't think of a good counter-argument, so I'll retreat
into self-important posturing."
Yup. What's it like to BE an invading alien? Some of them might have
qualms about it, try as they might to cover them up...
Well, that was interesting.
The resolution was a bit quick and easy, but that's okay in a story of
this length.
It's meant to be somewhat open-ended to tie in with the rest of the SSOA
stories. I'm still not sure quite how that'll work...
And would the aliens really be happy in android bodies?
There are advantages to biology, after all.
Absolutely. Darshian certainly seems to think so. It's the sort of
solution Kyusaku would come up with, though, I think.
And I'm not so certain
that Kyusaku and Ryunnosuke would so easily accept Akiko being
controlled by an alien.
I see them not as accepting that Akiko is hosting Darshian so much as
accepting a temporary standoff for the sake of a long-term solution. They
both want Akiko back, but they know that the problem is much larger than
that, and pushing for quick gains risks much larger losses.
I also felt like I was missing out on a backstory, like this was a
crossover between a series I knew and a series I didn't know. It'd be
nice to add just a little more detail on who these aliens are and how
they got to Earth.
See http://www.sbm.org/stories/ssoa/
The other SSOA stories, "Silent Invaders" in particular, tell some of
that. However, the exact nature of the Fellani and the exact history and
fate of their invasion of the Earth is still, er, under discussion. :)
That all having been said, I'm not sure you should change anything.
The story is very good already, and I fear more tinkering with it
might not be to its benefit. I know from experience that making too
many changes can just destroy a story.
It's "written to fit", in a way; it may well need changes to work with the
rest of the SSOA stories, and I knew that from the beginning. This is my
first try at a collaborative project. I want most of all to keep the
"lighthearted catastrophe" flavor of the Nuku-Nuku OAVs, though.
You've got the characterizations of the cast down pat. I loved your
Nuku Nuku, and Kyusaku was also wonderfully portrayed. Technically,
the writing was above excellent, losing points only for too many
compound sentences and the occasional "?!", which by the strictest use
of grammar is not acceptable. (I used to use it all the time myself;
I'm trying to cut down. ^_^).
Thanks. I'll try to keep that in mind. I was trying to "crank up" a bit
from my usual rather terse style, and it looks like I went too far.
Is this all there will be to the story? Do you plan a follow-up or is
the ultimate resolution implied?
I expect that the cast will be involved in various ways in the battle
against the Fellani invaders (and the exploration of ways to accommodate
them), but I don't know quite how, yet.
Again, very good. I enjoyed it.
Thank you for your very kind words and your excellent criticisms, and in
particular for telling me how the story "felt" to you: the finest sort of
feedback.
Vince Seifert Network Analyst seifertv@csus.edu
Techie: http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/
Fanfic: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/
CSUS hired me to build their LANs, not to give away the homeworld.