----- Original Message -----
From: "Bert Miller" <hkmiller@theeddy.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: [FFML] [Sailor Moon] [AU] Alternate Views 01

Quoting Alan <chibipoe@mindspring.com>:

 "I won't hurt you..." it said, it's face twisted in

That "it's" should be "its" (a possesive rather than
a contraction).

Noted. I hate when I get those confused.

a voice said cheerfully. "Thank you so much for not
dissapointing me, youma."

(sp) "disappointing"

Also noted. Thanks.

 The youma hissed, moving into a crouch as it scanned
the area. It was her. It had to be. The Destroyer.

Inclined to agree with Lurker-san that there's a
Buffyesque tinge to this.  Not sure it's bad, though;
it does help orient the reader somewhat, IMO.

It is intentional, I must admit.

Shouldn't that be "twin ponytails"?  I think of pigtails
as short, twisted things, and ponytails as free-falling,
and of indefinite length.

Noted. :)

Here the youma is using "destroyer" as a name, so should
be capitalized as you do above.  Actually, some of the
above may be a title rather than a name, so maybe should
be lower case.

As we will see shortly, the youma have taken to calling her 'The Destroyer'.
Not sure if it should be capitalised at all times or not.

presence...Jaedite."

btw, isn't it "Jadeite"?

I have seen it both ways, but the consensus seems to be that it is Jadeite.

before him, a rounded barrier springing up just
seconds before she reached

Suggest "a half-second".  In a fight, seconds is a long
time.

Noted also. :)

reverbrating through

"reverberating"

Fixed.

Ah, she's been watching too much of her own show. ;)
Seriously, I know (from below) it's been four years,
but has Jadeite let that much slip?  If the very first
2nd-level opponent hasn't been replaced yet, how does
Sailor Moon know what will happen, even if she does
suspect he has superiors?

She doesn't. But the youma have never stopped, despite her killing a lot of
them. So she's assuming, in a moment of bitterness, that if she kills
Jadeite, someone else will show up to replace him. As we see later, she
doesn't have much in the way of intel, and only suspects that he has
superiors.

Another point:  in the anime, the other three generals
actually did have tasks even at the beginning (we later
found out).  But in this story it's been four years,
rather than a few weeks.  Why hasn't Usagi run into
Nephrite, looking for the seven rainbow crystals?  Now,
I do not suggest that you need to tell us at this point;
but you do need to know the answer to this yourself.

I do. :)

You know, this is a good question.  And we didn't get
an answer, did we?  If Jadeite typically doesn't show
for such missions, why did he show this time?  This
answer, IMO, should be given in this chapter, as it
seems like it would come out in the Jadeite POV scenes
below.

Always a good idea to make sure you enemy hasn't forgotten you. Plus, he's
just a teensy bit smitten.

Well, this is clear enough:  V-chan wants someone,
presumably the bad guys, to think they may be the same.
I understood pretty clearly from this that she's trying
to draw attention away from Sailor Moon, as a way of
helping her.

V-chan is up to a bit more than is immediately apparent, yes. :)

on her food as Aino Minako's latest single, Moonlight
Densetsu, echoed from her television's speakers.

Heh.  Cute.  Japanese lyrics, rather than DIC's, I
assume?

Yes. Glad someone commented.

you try some classical music? Tchaivosky. Mozart.

"Tchaikovsky"

Wasn't sure about that one. Thanks.

 "I'm not going to let you wake someone else up and
have what happened to my family happen to them,"
Usagi retorted. "The answer is still no.

This confuses me a bit.  My understanding, from the
nightmare scene towards the end, was that what happened
to the Tsukinos happened BEFORE, or AS, Luna awakened
Usagi.  So the logical deduction for Usagi would be
that if she were targeted prior to awakening, the
others might be too, and SHOULD be awakened ASAP, so
that they can protect their families.  Probably easy
enough to fix, one way or another.

It is a little fuzzy. Explanations will be forthcoming in the next part or
2.

A rustle of cloth later, and he was gone, leaving
nothing but silence.

To me, it does seem illogical that Tux-chan could be
drawn here "night after night", but still never have
actually met Sailor Moon face-to-face.  Suggest
changing to "drawn here at the new moon every month" or
something of the sort.

Noted. And fixes a problem I just realised. Thanks.

alone. But, on this odd occassions that she did, in

"the odd occasions when"

Should have been the odd occasions that she did. Mistyped a word again.
Noted.

Well, for what it's worth, I certainly do NOT read the
above as indicating that Usagi is a police photographer.
Most probably, she's a press photographer, given the
reference to the police as a possible obstacle.

*nod*

Clear enough, given any familiarity with the SM manga.
Tux-chan is still looking for the Ginzuishou, so he
can restore his memory.

Pretty much. That. Or moonlighting as a thief to pay for the formal wear. ;)

"I'm going to find out what you're up to, cape-boy."
And she knew just who could help her out.

We don't really learn anything this chapter, IMO, to
account for Usagi's interest in Tux-chan here.  All we
know is that she's obsessed with destroying youma, and
Tux-chan clearly isn't one of those.  I would consider
this action to display more than casual curiousity,
though.

As I said elsewhere, she's playing amateur detective because he keeps coming
back to Osa-P and she wants to know what he is.

unnatural silence reigned her.

"here", I suspect you want.

Fixed earlier

Given your apparent use of the manga source material
(at least to some extent), I am forced to wonder if
Jadeite and Mars were fiancees back then.  And, if so,
whether either remembers.

No, to both questions. :)

 "I'll meet you at Kino's!" Usagi called, waving.

Owning a restaurant in her own name at, what, 18 years
of age?  is pretty good going in a way being a top
idol singer is not (necessarily) in Japan.  Explanation
when the appropriate chapter is reached would not be
amiss.

Duly noted.

 "Jaedite!" Beryl's voice cracked out, drawing
whimpers and prompting the youma crowding the throne
room to cringe. "Before me, NOW!"

Others have already mentioned this (and you're agreed,
I believe), but:  this scene does NOT follow logically
from the first with these two characters.

Yeah.

 The most irritating thing, though, was his utter
futility at unmasking her.

suggest "inability to unmask".  "Futility" is not
something an individual can have.

Noted again. :)

This is an interesting comment, though.  Without the
other senshi, _would_ Sailor Moon be so easy to find?
Well, she still rescues Naru a lot, so presumably some
careful tracing of rescued victims' acquaintances might
yield something.

An issue that will be addressed before long, I think.

 Somewhere in Tokyo, there had to be someone who knew
the identity of Sailor Moon.

Rei:  Me, you idiot!  Your old fiancee!

Hee.

Err... how?  He still has no idea (as far as we know).

Mostly he's figuring that distracting her will give him some sort of
opportunity to look. If nothing else, wearing her out from the fighting will
let him track her a bit easier.

BTW, I really enjoyed the way the fight scenes show us
Usagi's _physical_ superiority to the youma.  That's
not something I recall ever seeing before, and I find
I like it.

Thanks. :) I figure she's a lot stronger as Moon, and having trained
herself, can probably handle any youma thrown at her with little difficulty.

Tux-chan's normal M.O. is to arrive just a bit earlier,
and throw off the youma's aim with a last-minute rose
throw, rather than moving Usagi out of the way.  Might
want to consider rewriting this way, while still having
the youma escape.  If this happens because Usagi has
been distracted herself by the rose, then her temper
tantrum is partially explained by the fact that she's
mad at herself for being so distracted.

He has, on occasion, done the dive in and spirit her away trick. Refer to
Nephrite's first active episode for an example. The episode with the artist
girl youma and the rocks is another such. (during Zoisite's hunt for the
Rainbow Crystals)

I read this that Usagi is NOT recognizing
the "gentleman thief" here, which I find quite
surprising.  If your intention is that she does, but
doesn't care (because of her obsession with the youma),
suggest you make it clear that she does recognize him.

I reworked this and hopefully it flows better.

If Jadeite's still the active general, who remembered
this name and mentions it to Rei?

The extent of their info is that Jadeite is from the Dark Kingdom. Luna
hasn't been able to recall anything else as yet.

 "That is the only thing you haven't told me, isn't
it, Usagi?" Rei asked from the floor, her voice like
steel.

Coupled with Usagi's dream later, this is clear enough:
Usagi is quite aware that Rei is a dormant senshi, and
refuses to tell her.

*whistles innocently* I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor.

That would be a massive insult to the Queen. She
would hardly abide such an action."

Could stand some amplification (not necessarily here).
Historically, many cultures just don't count infidelity
which cannot result in pregnancy, most especially for
political marriages.

Granted. But to be carrying on with one of your bodyguards(assuming that it
were true and not just a rumor fashioned by Princess Selene) when you're
there to finalise arrangements for your wedding to a Princess, would be
rather insulting, IMO.)

 "Mother has been too busy closeted with the senshi
from the outer planets to notice any such thing,"

Not sure how anyone managed to read subtext into that;
I certainly didn't.  "Closeted", as any dictionary
will say, means "in a meeting" in this case.

Exactly.

I thought that an odd choice for Mar's old name, given
its lunar associations.  Especially with "Aphrodite"
for Minako, why not "Aries" (or a feminization
thereof: "Ariana")?

I stuck Phoebe in as a placeholder for lack of anything else. Couldn't think
of a suitable stylization of Ares to fit. And Greek Mythos don't really have
a war goddess. (Artemis is the closest, but that name is taken, obviously.)
Was leaning toward borrowing from Celtic mythology and naming her Morrigan.
Your suggestion is under advisement, though. :)

BTW, I certainly don't object to the Usagi-Rei
relationship you've drawn, though I did think it odd
that Usagi seems to be so dominant in it.  Takahashi's
more suggestive drawings always show Usagi as passive
recipient, if I'm not mistaken.  But unusual can be
good, and I'm not complaining.

She isn't always, but on certain things, she gets a little domineering
about.

(Aside:  I cannot quite see how anyone can object to
lesbian themes in a series where female characters so
outnumber male, and in which Rei and Minako, at least,
acknowledge Usagi as their "one and only".)

Exactly. Though, anyone entertaining notions of a Usagi-Rei-Minako
relationship should look elsewhere. I hear Mark Mackinnon's 'On a Clear Day
You Can See Forever' has a good little setup . /plug for a fanfic he likes.

* The Present

Perhaps a misleading tag on Usagi's nightmare.

Just a bit.

"Make stupidboy suffer." A black star coalesced on
the surface of the creature's chest. Light crackled
from it, striking Shingo in the chest. He
began to scream, as if he were being torn apart.

"A crystaline, star-shaped object emerged from his
chest."

Clearly an S-season daimon.

Yup.

The implication is that they're together every night,
not what I'd thought earlier.  It appeared more
occasional before.

Perhaps 'Whenever Rei's here?'

this evening. I thought I had diverted as usual. It

"I thought I had diverted her as usual."

Noted.

she turned to go, green hair that was almost black
swirling out behind her.

Again, this is clear; I don't know how much more hint
we could conceivably need as to who this is.

Yup. I didn't think I needed to put a name to her, seeing as how it was
obvious, IMO.

C&C is appreciated. Off-list is preferred.

Heh.  How ironic that the most-commented-on story in
months has this tag...

It is a bit amusing. And this my first fic to ever be posted here, if memory
serves.


Alan



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