Hey, David!
Thanks for writing! And, as I believe public C&C deserves public replies,
here we are! ^_^
> > he could dimly hear a radio humming platitudes to itself as two
voices
>
> Platitudes... Don't have a clue about what that is. Not that my
vocabulary
> is that big to begin with.
A platitude is an inoffensive and unoriginal thing to say.
Pretty much, yeah. It's that stuff we always say when we don't mean a damn
word of it. Radio DJs happen to be very good at it, no matter what country
they're in.
> > the urge to yawn. "I guess the kamis are causing trouble."
>
> But isn't 'kami' a Japanese word? You once told me that the plural was
the
> same as the singular when Japanese words were involved, so it should be
> 'kami', right?
Right-o
(sigh) I know, I know. I can't believe I went and made that mistake after
already warning so many other people about it. I guess I just wasn't
thinking.
Happens to us all, just happens to me more often. ^_^
> As we're on the subject, why don't you simply use 'gods'? I've heard a
> couple of people talk about gratuitous use of Japanese before...
Ah. Here we get into the distinction between gratuitous and
non-gratuitous use of Japanese. Since a "kami" isn't precisely the same
thing as a "god" using "kami" isn't gratuitous.
Yeah, that's kind of my point. I mean, Raiden is a god. The Sacred Fire at
Rei's temple is a kami. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of gratutitous
Japanese either, but I do think you should call a furo a furo, and not a
bathtub. Culturally, there's a difference between the two. Of course, that
just one man's opinion, and I try not to force my views onto others. Writers
can use as much or as little Japanese as they want.
> Which leads me to ask, how DO you kill one of these things? It's not
like
> they have a brain, or a heart, or lungs... You get the idea.
Sure they do. A little worse for the wear maybe, but the parts are
still there.
Actually, no. As I tried to show back at the start of chapter two, when
Thraw and Erdge were making them, these guys are pretty much just skeletons
being held together by goo. There's some flesh, sure, and maybe even a few
spare organs, but since they aren't actually being used I wouldn't call them
"vital" anymore. ^_^
> > her, and heard the distinctive sound of twelve undead ninja hurling
>
> In my dictionary (the one that had war-torn, so now I don't trust it
that
> much), 'distinctive' means 'easily identifiable'.
>
> Is that particular sound distinctive, then? I'm not sure.
That depends on what you are comparing it to. If it's nine undead
ninja pounding on the underside of an '86 Hyundai, then it isn't
all that distinctive, but it is certainly distinctive compared to
the sound of 3 six year olds on a trampoline.
There you go! That's what I was trying to get at, describing one of the
sounds that you can never really describe to someone. But by Jove, you KNOW
you'll recognise that noise if you ever hear it again! ^_^
> > Naaza hissed venomously and narrowed his hooded eyes, slitted
> > pupils seeming to disappear as the orbs glowed with a sickly purplish
> > light. "Oh," he breathed, his breath steaming from between his lips
as
>
> Um, 'breathed' and 'breath' in the same sentence is awkward. Don't know
how
> you could change it, though.
I don't know why the information that his breath is streaming from
between his lips is being given to us.
Not "streaming", David. "Steaming", as in a big cloud of steam. I did it to
help with the image, and also to remind people that it's cold out. You know,
the way your breath fogs in winter?
> man/weak woman couple works (there're plentiful examples of this out
>there),
> but it doesn't the other way around?
General rules fail in individual cases. Does Jun have the good
judgement or cowardice to avoid jumping into situations that will get
him killed? Is Hotaru good enough to keep him from getting killed?
That's the problem with this argument. It isn't that NO man can handle being
the weaker half of a relationship, just that JUN might not be able to.
Considering he was about ten or eleven during the series, canon doesn't help
us with this. We can really only guess, and use what we see as being Jun's
basic character. And of course, not everyone agrees on what that character
is.
On a personal note, I hope to answer both of the questions you just raised
over the course of this story, and I assure you that after Dark Crusade
there will be no question about where Jun and Hotaru stand with each other.
Those are very good points about the individuality making a large part of
whether the relationship will work. After all, Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo
might overcome such a problem, but it nearly destroyed Sho Fukamachi and
Mizuki Sagawa (Literally : Zoanoids don't play nicely).
Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to drop me a line. I appreciate it!
-Morgan Hudson
_______________________________________________________
Say Bye to Slow Internet!
http://www.home.com/xinbox/signup.html