[FFML] Re: [Fanfic][Multi x-over][Rewrite][Draft 1] The Three Senshi


Copy-Pasted Disclaimer: I reserve the right to be totally wrong, and to misquote facts and to make
errors in judgment. I also C&C as I read, so what I said at one point can easily be retracted on
the next, depending on how the story progresses. I don't claim to be the authority on fanfiction
writing... Hell, I see C&Cing as a learning experience. Agree? Disagree? Corrections on my
corrections? I'll thank you for it. Ignore all my comments in applying to your fic? You have the
right to do so. Take it with a grain of salt, use what you can use and ignore the rest. ^_^

And my next victim is... :P

On 8/1/05, StudioPC <studiopc@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by their respective holders. No
money is being made from this and no such intent should be inferred.


Wow. That's one of the more impressive-sounding disclaimers I've read in a while.

Her name was Ryoko, a woman far older then she looked


Ryoko: (glares at the narrative) I don't know whether I should be flattered or...

Aeka: She's not really forty-something... She's much, _much_ older.  (nods sagely)

Ryoko: (glares at Aeka)

"Find a newer sob story, and a better speech pattern" Ryoko snarled.
"Now buzz."


Heh. Yup, that's Ryoko, all right.

 It was

a Terjurai, with the blank eyes that marked a node of the Nabiki hive
mind.


Huh. Nabiki hive mind. Well, that's a reference that need not be further expounded upon, given
that this is the FFML Ranma list.

It wore a voluminious


voluminous

"Goodnight, Sasami," Ryoko said, voice thick with emotion. Sasami's
eyes closed and then she faded from sight in a stream of golden and
blue sparkles. Ryoko took a deep breath through clenched teeth and
dashed her tears away with one swipe of her hand and then she stood
up and left.


Awwwwwwww. She died a la Kagato... or a la Yoda, with all things considered.

Still, he was something of a positive thinker. Yes, it was disorienting
to change gender when hit with water, but it also meant could finally


I believe you're missing a 'he' in between 'meant' and 'could'

the royal

family's personal bodyguard.

But first, he had business to take care of and he shoved the left
control rod forward, increasing the horse's speed, the ruins growing
ever closer.


Suggest: cutting off the sentence during the 'business to take care of' part, coz the flow of
prose was disrupted by the (IMO) sudden and out-of-the-blue shift of focus from taking care of
unfinished business to 'driving'.

'Man,' he thought to himself, 'how the hell did I wind up havin three
duels
in one day?'


Suggest: 'how the hell did I wind up havin' three duels...' (add a single quote after 'havin')

Twisting the lever, he parked the horse by the tree and stared at the
young
lady standing by the wall, chewing on a blade of grass. Her bright
red hair
was tied back from her face in a long pigtail and she wore a long red
cloak. She looked much like his female self, but smaller and more
slender.


Strangely enough, from my end, your fic has formatting problems roughly at this point of the story
(which is weird, 'coz it's quite okay during the earlier parts). The thing of most note are the
single to double word line spaces of 'young', 'red hair', and 'slender' seen above. Perhaps your
mail client has its own formatting, thusly double formatting your already formatted fic? Just a
head's up, coz many of your paragraphs have somehow ended up this way.

"Took them long enough," muttered the blue haired


blue-haired (compound descriptors should be hyphenated)

in the tunics

of the
Church's soldiers. "You'll all under arrest," said a woman with the
epaulets
and silver braid of a captain. "Will you come peacefully, or resist
arrest?"

"She would," the other two Senshi said in unison.


"She would what?" the captain asked, "Come peacefully or resist arrest?"

Suggest: 'Resist arrest?' the other Senshi pondered. "She would," they eventually blurted out in
unison.

"What are you, stupid?" demanded the blue haired


blue-haired (compound descriptors should be hyphenated)

Saotome wound up with the captain, who proved to be well skilled


well-skilled (compound descriptors should be hyphenated, though this time hyphenation may not be
called for... <shrugs>)

Saotome stared as Nerima's hilt bounced from the top of the wall, and


Methinks the comma is unnecessary there... It disrupts the flow of the sentence and the prose.

fell to the ground far below. 'Far enough to kill someone,' part of
him dispassionately noted and he looked back at the captain,


Methinks the 'and' in between 'dispassionately noted' and 'he' should be replaced with 'as'.

"Its only bad if they get you," Utena replied.


"It's only..." (change 'Its' to 'It's')

When one is armed and their oppenent


opponent

It was on one cold and clear morning as they traveled a narrow road
along a mountain face, that suddenly the sun seemed to wink out,


Methinks you don't need the comma after 'mountain face'. I understand that it was probably put
there to avoid confusion to what 'that' in the phrase 'that suddenly the sun...' refers to, but
for the sake of proper prose flow and punctuation, please get rid of the stray comma.

Saotome looked up just in time to see what almost looked like some
kind of hand descend upon them.

^^;

Saotome somehow managed to perch on Shidou's head as the scream of
sheer terror bellowed forth from his lips. "CAAAAAAAT!"


Personally, I believe a scream of sheer terror doesn't make a 'bellowing' sound. It makes more of
a 'screeching' sound, really. Something that bellows or rumbles doesn't convey terror, it itself
is terrifying.

"What the hell?" Shidou demanded, shoving Saotome to the floor.
Saotome immeditly


immediately

"Fine. Saotome, come with us." Ryoko and Shidou led Saotome through a
corridor to a small conical cockpit. before


Capitalize 'before' (Before)

"Closer to twelve," Ryoko said absently as she she


Repetition of the word 'she'.

"Its on this link."


"It's on...

and all references to Helios, no matter how passing or the context.
Its tagged as High Priority."

It's tagged...

W-ell... that was different. ^^; The SM content of this mostly Sci-Fi fic is sparse at best, (with
only passing mentions of Queen Serenity et al.) so it can hardly be called an SM fic. Then there's
the unfamiliar Shidou, the barely familiar Utena, the somewhat familiar Ryoko and the sickeningly
familiar Ranma rounding up the trio of 'Senshi', if they could really be called that. The TM bits
are well-done and very close to the series... Needless to say, Ryoko was optimally characterized.
The Ranma bits are a bit mangled, as Ranma has a different history and a different sort of 'dream'
(apparently being a senshi beats being a man among men in this fic). I'm guessing his 'curse'
history has been a bit modified as well. I can't comment much on Utena and Shidou, though out of
the three it's seemingly Utena who suffers the most by having the least engaging dialogue and the
flattest characterization. There are enough familiar elements for the reader to tolerate the
newer, author-added elements.

As for the grammar... it's about as okay as the fic. It's not perfect by any stretch of the
imagination, but it's not all that horrible either. No purple prose. No thesaurus words. Quite a
bit of punctuation problems and commonplace 'It's--Its' mistakes, but all of these can be easily
fixed.

Oh, as a side note... I wasn't looking all that carefully for grammar mistakes, so you should have
your eyes peeled when editing this fic. The author should be the best editor of his fic.

Overall? It's okay. A nice time-waster. Hopefully the character histories would be delved upon
better on the next installment, because I personally wasn't all that 'compelled' by the main plot.
In any case, ignore my 'It's s'okay (shrug)' comments if you'd like. I'm only "keeping it real"
and telling you straight out what I thought about the fic. That's my two cents. Abdiel out.

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