Am combining these as well. Jim Miller wrote:

Used most of the grammar comments, BTW.

--On 4/14/02 1:26 AM -0400 DB Sommer wrote:

Mitsuki was torn between saying, "But I don't see any around," to
defending Kazuki

to -> and?

'or' would probably be better since she's trying to decide.

"No. Most of the men I came into contact with were subordinates in the
Rara army. No fraternization was permitted within the ranks, especially
when it came to officers. And I was the leader's daughter as well, which
was another complication. The few men I met outside of the military
tended to be intimidated by me for some odd reason."

Didn't Mitsuki Rara get 'back story' memories from this world too?

Yep. But like Mitsuki S. she views her original world's memories as the
dominating ones and as being more 'real' than the second set Kazuki gave
them.

Rara's appearance was perfect save in one area: the face. She looked
absolutely miserable. It was the worst hang dog expressions Mitsuki had
seen in her life. It was more like Rara was preparing to march towards a
firing squad composed of poor shots armed with BB guns instead of a date
with one of the most popular guys in school.

Uh, you lost me on the BB gun joke.

Am switching to pellet gun. And the idea is the last thing in the world you
want to hear in being led to a firing squad as that the squad are all bad
shots (meaning they won't hit vital organs and will probably just wing you
many times) and that their weapons won't finish you off quick. Sort of like
being put in an electric chair that only gives off medium range electric
shocks, and they keep hitting you with it until you're dead. That was the
image I
was going for.

This wasn't good. Her cousin was on the verge of ruining everything.

"It's

too late to back out now. You can't accept a date and then cancel at the
last minute." Although Mitsuki would have paid good money to see
Sanosuke's face if he learned he had been dumped by someone.

Dumped, or stood up?

Stood up. Will change.

"Try to bring her back alive!" Mitsuki shouted, though she doubted
Sanosuke heard her over the roaring of his motor. Mitsuki hated loud,
obnoxious cars almost as much as the loud, obnoxious clods that drove
them.

Unless she herself is driving, of course. :-)

Heh.

A turn for the darker with the ending, I see.

But not completely dark. I thought I was hinting at the darker turn with
Mitsuki S's
recriminations and showing that Sanosuke is quite the egotistical scumbag. I
usually try to mix humor and serious in more or less equal amounts. That
might have thrown you slightly.

And on to part 3 comments:

--On 4/14/02 12:30 PM -0400 DB Sommer wrote:

It was to the point where Mitsuki did think of her
almost as two different people, but that was only when the outfit was

on.

Now Rara was standing before her in normal clothing, but not sounding a
thing like the meek girl everyone knew.

As I recall from the show, M. Rara only wore 'the outfit' for trailers.
When she was piloting she wore other things.

She does seem to command field operations early in the series and was in
Miss Ra garb. Remember, at one point Kazuki keeps her from plummeting to her
death when the building she was standing on was hit.

And M. Rara told Kuzuki it

was 'when I take my make up off, I'm just Mitsuki.'

I think that was in reference to calling her 'Miss Ra', all the time.

I was uncomfortable with the level of darkness at the end of part 2 and

the

beginning of part 3.  Attempted rape, dripping blood and M. Rara beating
the stuffings out of M. Sanada was a bit too much, I thought.  <shrug>

I understand where you're coming from, but I think it needed the conflict to
go from one emotional extreme to the next, as well as making things more...
intense, for lack of a better word, considering what happens between the two
later. I didn't want to make it too easy or take the forging of their new
emotional ties too light. It is meant to be a serious relationshp rather
than a tongue in cheek one, like in some other lemons I did. I probably
could have hinted at the shift better early on. Perhaps I was being too
subtle. I would hate to cut any of the humor bits. I sort of like those as
is.

It was still quite interesting, though.  It made me think about the
contrast between the two Mitsukis' personalities differently than I had
before.  M. Sanada, who Ayuko had outright abandoned, had become more like
Ayuko than she realized--or wanted.  Meanwhile, M. Rara, who had still had
Ayuko around, had, with the additional pressures of Rara Army duties, all
but completely separated that part of her personality.

Yep. A bit ironic, that. I thought it was a neat idea.


 This is beyond

what's in the show, where Miss Ra is pretty much only shown doing

trailers.

So it's hard to judge what she's like when most of the time she's
(presumably) reading from a script--but it's plausible.

Yeah. Only 13 epsiodes weren't enough to develop most of the supporting cast
much. A pity, I think they could have exteded it to 26 eps and maybe a
couple of movies or something. :)

It seems to me that you're suggesting that each of them feel more at peace
with themselves after all this.

After each one's 'gestalt' yep.

 M. Sanada is admitting her own feelings
to

herself more, and M. Rara is feeling more integrated with Miss Ra.  Then
the question becomes, is it because of Kazuki's merge 'wish' being
fulfilled, or because the two of them (primarily M. Sanada) are not
resisting a link similar to that between Kazuki and Zinv?

It's the first reason mostly, though how they went about finding the
happiness Kazuki wanted was sort of up to them.

  Kazuki and Zinv

are supposed to be the 'same' person (entity?) in the two parallel worlds,
and I should think that the two Mitsukis would be as close, or closer to
the 'same'.  That fits my idea of 'gestalt' much better than just a
threesome relationship. :-)

Well, it was supposed to be a gestalt on several levels all at once.
Obviously the Miss Ra/Mitsuki Rara coming together, and Mitsuki S. accepting
the feelings she had been fighting were part of it as well. Once they
accepted these previously separate parts from themselves, the whole became
greater than the pieces.

Thanks for the comments. They were helpful and very appreciated.

D.B. Sommer





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