Copy-Pasted Disclaimer: I reserve the right to be totally wrong, 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 9/20/05, Jared Waddell <rick_spiff@yahoo.com> wrote:

building than it's cladding, more to a book than it's cover.

Revise: the 'it's' in between 'than' and 'cover' with 'its'.

She nodded to herself. This was much better than the pink uniforms of
her previous school. With that single long look complete, she stepped
through the gates, the script 'Ohtori Academy' spread above her in fine
bronze.

Apt phrasing for one such as Ayumu Kasuga. Who knows what goes on in that
narcoleptic mind of hers?

"Ladies...and you horn-dogs in the back, this is--" A sudden blast of
white noise obscured the next two words out her mouth, but no-one 

no-one --> no one (no need for the hyphen)

rose again, making it impossible to make out. Again, no-one took notice.

Again, no-one --> no one (hyphen muyo)

Poor Ayumu. To be stuck with a 'bleh'-type of name.
 

"All right class, turn to page 126 in 'A Modern History of Japan.'"
Yukari-sensei announced.

Half of the class blinked in unison.

The other half stared blankly.

Heh.
 

"WHY ISN'T ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION TO ME?!!" Shrieked Yukari-sensei.

Revise: shrieked Yukari-sensei (small caps on the 's' of 'shrieked')

...For I do believe that she 'shrieked' the words, 'WHY ISN'T ANYONE PAYING
ATTENTION TO ME?!!' so therefore 'shrieked' is a speech indicator to her
declaration.

Yukari-sensei began stalking up and down the classroom, striding up and
down between the rows of desks like a drill sergeant. Everyone sat up in
their seats and faced forward stoically. Backs were ram-rod 

FYI, ramrod is an actual, dictionary-verifiable word. No need for the hyphen.

straight.

Pencils were arranged perfectly parallel to the edges of desks.
Textbooks were all open the exact same amount. You could measure the
angle from cover to cover with a laser protractor. All were turned to
exactly the same page.

Huh. Typical Japanese homogeneity. That, or the work of lazy animators/low
budget TV anime.

An eerie silence came over the room.

Suggest: replacing 'came' with 'crept', since it is an 'eerie' silence.

The next to her, 

You're missing the word 'girl' in between 'The' and 'next'.

Grammar Rule #38: Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

the one with the glasses, didn't move a muscle, didn't

flinch, didn't so much as change the rythym 

rythym --> rhythm

"Ah, Shakespear," 

You misspelled 'Shakespeare'.

She sighed. The rest of the class watched her, a few

craking sympathic 

You misspelled both 'cracking' and 'sympathetic'.

[The Rose Bride and The Understudy.]


Lunch was an affair always met with enthusiasm. Osaka finally got the
chance to meet the two girls sitting to either side of her. They
introduced themselves one at a time, as if the other girl were a

Revise: were --> was

stranger not be associated with.

Revise: not to be associated with. (put in a 'to' in between 'not' and 'be')

Actually, it's only _Yomi_ who's doing the 'as if the other girl was a stranger
not to be associated with' bit. The way Tomo addresses Yomi (she says _to
Yomi_, as if she really did exist, that she gave the bespectacled girl the
nickname 'Yomi') is hardly what one would do to someone whom she pretends to
not exist.

"Tomo Takino. Class brain. Pleased to meet you." The first girl said
enthusiastically over her bento.

"Ignore her." The girl with glasses said, separating her chopsticks.
"Koyomi Mizuhara. Just call me Yomi. Everyone else does."

"I gave you that nickname." Tomo said haughtily, ackowledging 

Two things. First: "I gave you that nickname," Tomo said haughtily, (change the
period after Tomo's dialogue into a comma)

Second: ackowledging --> acknowledging
 

"You'll pay for that!" Tomo shouted, a fist raised threateningly.

Suggest: the 'a' in between 'shouted,' and 'fist' should be replaced with 'her'
 

Yomi pulled down one eyelid and stuck her tongue out. "Biii-da!"

Doesn't English have onomatopoeia for 'the sound of pulling one's tongue at
another in a teasing manner'? :P After all, we do have Homer Simpson to thank
for the onomatopoeia of 'Annoyed grunt'. 

"How do you two know each other?" Osaka said, nibbling on her bento.

Actually, Osaka 'asked', not said.
 

"Oh, we've known each other for _years_." Tomo began.

_years_," Tomo began. (speech indicator)

"Sadly." Yomi quipped with a smirk.

"Sadly," Yomi quipped (speech indicator)
 

"Sakaki-san." Yomi answered without looking up.

"Sakaki-san," Yomi answered (speech indicator)
 

"Well..." Tomo was not to be disuaded. 

disuaded --> dissuaded

Yomi looked disinctly 

disinctly --> distinctly

Oh, and here's another piece of friendly advice... proofread.

Yomi plowed ahead, now shaking Osaka. "She's a madwoman! A madwoman I
tell you! She'll have my hide if I talk! Have to find a place to hide!
Have to find a place to hide!" 

Wow. This is like the first time I watched 'The Cable Guy'. I was just about to
laugh when suddenly, I got confused as to whether I _should_ laugh or not.

Osaka instantly flipped open her notebook. She only remembered horribly
interrupted naps occuring 

occuring --> occurring

"The founding fathers must have been heavy drinkers." Osaka noted dryly.

drinkers," Osaka noted dryly. (speech indicator)

Also, IMO, Osaka <> wry. Suggest removing 'dryly'. Otherwise, heh. Funny
exchange.

"How do you figure?" Kaorin asked, and eyebrow raised enquiringly.

Replace 'and' with 'her'. The 'her' goes better with 'eyebrow raised
enquiringly' than 'and'. Also, suggest replacing 'enquiringly' with
'inquiringly.'

"Well, they obviously got so drunk," Osaka pointed at the rest of the
blank page. "That they couldn't remember what they did to form the
nation."

Um, this part is a bit extraneous and kinda ruins the setup of the joke.
Suggest removing it altogether.

Kaorin, showing entirely too much white in her eyes, 

Hmmm. You've already used that description. Watch out for it, coz redundancy is
one of the main sources of tired-ol' cliches.

Kaorin's mouth moved, but the voice that spoke had the deep tones of a
teenaged boy. "I challenge you."

Heh.
 

A tall man with long green hair and a classically beautiful face stood
over Osaka's desk, 

Ooooohh... so it wasn't Kaorin who said the challenge? Funny setup,
nonetheless.

gazing at her ring with a look of expectation. Osaka

fumed. Couldn't she finish a sentence around here without--

"There's no need for that." Yomi interjected.

Heh. Nice running gag. Also, suggest: that," Yomi interjected. (if you meant
'interjected' to be a speech indicator and not a separate action from the
dialogue)
 

Hey, wait a minute! Osaka thought desperately. "Who are you?" She asked

you?" she asked (speech indicator)
 

The tall...Saiyonji seemed to finally notice Yomi existed. "Yes?"

Heh. Nice bit of hesitance from the sentient narrative prose. So there are
times when the sentient narrative prose can be funny instead of annoying! :)
 

"Her comfort is not my primary concern." He said in a voice like milk
chocolate.

concern," he said (speech indicator)

Osaka's stomach rumbled.

Er... riiiight.
 

Saiyonji sweatdropped. 

Suggest: a bead of sweat trickled down Saiyonji's forehead (if you really want
to use the ever-so-cliche fandom convention of 'sweatdrop', then why not be
subtle about it? By the context of the scene, I'm sure lots of people will get
your meaning.

"I see..." Saiyonji said to himself, then nodded at Osaka. "Very well.

Suggest: himself, and then nodded to Osaka. (add 'and' in between 'himself,'
and 'then'

"Are we going to pick up stray baseballs?"

There was a loud crash by the door. Saiyonji picked himself up from his
face-fault. 

Suggest: getting rid of 'from his face-fault' and just go with 'Saiyonji picked
himself up from the floor'. Lots of people already know what a face-fault is,
so to avoid the tired-ol' cliche syndrome of humor fics, why not be subtle
about it?

"That was lame. Very lame." Yomi said

Very lame," Yomi said. (speech indicator)
 

Osaka nodded at the empty doorway, not even sure what she was agreeing
to. A duel? Wasn't that some kind of dance? 

Osaka: Perhaps a song performed by two people?

Yomi: That's a 'duet'!

Osaka: A quilt usually used as a blanket?

Tomo: That's a 'duvet'!

Osaka: Constraint, restraint of liberty, or imprisonment?

Chiyo: No, no... That's 'duress'! (thinks) Wow. You knew that word, Osaka-san?

Osaka waved to Yomi. "Hey! Yomi! How'd you do on the quiz today?"

Yomi put her head in her hands and held up a piece of paper with a 35
circled in red at the top.

Heh. And look, even Yomi's humoring Osaka.
 

"If you two are QUITE FINISHED!" Snapped Saiyonji, 

FINISHED!" snapped Saiyonji, (speech indicator)

SHE was supposed to have one already? "I don't carry swords, usually."
Osaka said nervously. "They're dangerous." It was true, too. Who would
want to risk tripping while carrying a sword? And while on that huge
spiral staircase? These duelests were real thrill-seekers all right.

Three things. First... duelests --> duelists. Second, it's 'thrill-seekers, all
right' (add a comma in between 'thrill-seekers' and 'all right'). Third... Heh.

Osaka pulled out a Magic Marker(tm). "The pen is mightier than the
sword."

Heheheh. Though the humor can do well without the Terry Pratchett-style
witticisms (like putting a trademark mark after something familiar), IMO.

The face-faults could be heard throughout the entire campus. 

Here's the thing... "face-fault" is a tired old cliche; I suggest not using it
unless you can do something really fresh or clever with it. Try to come up with
at least a semi-original description of what the act of 'face-faulting' looks
like.

She did the same to Saiyonji, chastizing him. 

chastizing --> chastising

"Useless woman!" Saiyonji shouted, attempting to shoulder Yomi aside.

Yomi soundly decked him.

"What was that for?" Saiyonji said from his position sprawled on the
arena floor.

Since I'm writing C&C instead of a fic, allow me to make use of the tired-ol'
cliche. (sweatdrop)

"It's okay." Osaka said, 

okay," Osaka said,

Yomi had

stopped to change...somewhere, and the two had spent the past thirty
minutes setting up their new dorm room.

Blinking at the recap, Osaka looked expectantly at Yomi.

Heh.
 

"Nah. I've been doing that trick for _ages_." The taller girl said with

_ages_," the taller girl said with (speech indicator)

Also, I'm noticing that Yomi has some sort of shtick with the 'underscoring
words for emphasis' thing.

Osaka pictured a small child with Saiyonji's face crying pitifully.
"Oh."

See? You just did the 'SD-ing' without saying 'SD-ing'. Very good. Just as long
as you can make the cliches somewhat clever, original, and witty, you can use
them. Otherwise, they're just tired ol' cliches.
 

"Look, Osaka. You're a nice girl, and there's some things I feel I had

there's --> there're

"Don't worry, I got rid of 'em already." Osaka held up a book with
dozens of flattened arachnid carcases 

carcasses

Though this seems more like something Tomo would do, methinks.

"You find 'em cleaning every dorm room, it seems." Osaka noted casually.

it seems," Osaka noted casually (speech indicator)

"Occupational hazard."

Yomi twitched.

----------

[Ph33r teh Cut3 Ones.] (With apologies to Fred Gallagher)

Why apologize? Piro hardly came up with teh l33t... Though he perhaps came up
with the slogan 'Fear the Cute Ones'?
 

A pair of blond pigtails 

blonde pigtails

(ahem) General rule is: blond/brunet = males, while blonde/brunette = females.
Got it? Good.

Also, isn't Chiyo more of a redhead? I mean, if anime visualizations of the
manga characters are to be believed. Or is my confusion for naught since this
is a 'fusion' of two series, so Chiho's hair color can be based on the Utena
palette of hair colors? Even though, I believe changing Chiyo's hair color will
constitute removing a familiar 'trademark' of hers.

bounced merrily through the air while their

owner skipped down the path to school. She stood a good head shorter
than her peers, most of whome 

whome --> whom

politely stayed out of her way as she

passed them.

Not far away, a familiar girl moved along with the throngs of students,
a bispecaled 

bispecaled --> bespectacled

girl right behind her.

"Her name is Chiyo Nanahara(?)." 

Since Chiyo's not a Miyama anymore, and my familiarity of Utena mostly consists
of 'The Pink-haired lesbian girl and the brown-skinned lesbian girl are lovers
and there are roses, dueling, bishonen and other stuff going on in the anime',
I can't help you with the spelling of that strange name. Try googling for it,
though.

The girl with glasses said. "She runs

the student council with a tiny, cute iron fist. 

Suggest: tiny and cute iron fist.

She's in communication

with Ends of the World. There's this big...plot thing she's trying to
arrange and--Osaka, are you listening to me?"

Heh.

The shorter girl noded 

noded --> nodded

Yomi frowned. "Osaka, this is important. This stupid student council is
really dangerous! Do you think I dress up like a Brittish 

Brittish --> British

twit and water

roses for my health?"

Well, since the 'stupid student council' _is_ dangerous, then yes... Yomi does
the things she does for her health.

And she's cute. Don't let

it throw you off guard though. 

guard, though.

[Please. Do Not Hug. The Megalomaniac.]


"Stop hugging me!"

Osaka loosened her hold, but didn't let go of the mineature 

mineature --> miniature

"Of course not!" Chiyo-chan said as if it were obvious to any idiot
within earshot.

Apparently not, 'coz Ayumu-chan's still hugging you.

There was that word again. Osaka wondered what revolutionizing the world
meant. She pictured the earth, slowly starting to spin. Didn't the earth
spin normally now? 

Osaka then corrected herself, picturing the earth spinning around the sun.

Chiyo-chan leaned over the girl. "Do not hug me." She harumph'd 

harumph'd --> harrumphed

"Oh, don't worry about her." Said a delicate voice from above.

her," said a delicate voice from above. (speech indicator)
 

"Oh. It's no problem." The girl looked in the direction the dimunitive

dimunitive --> diminutive

dictator had left. Her voice was soft, melodus. 

melodious.

Osaka was reminded of a

harp that could speak. "I'm--" A curious burst of white noise seemed to
fill Osaka's ears. She cursed her luck, but she'd only missed the girl's
frist 

first

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I am." Osaka said 

am," Osaka said (speech indicator)

Thoughts of a dancing, singing troupe of harps popped out of Osaka's
head as she saw the rose-crested ring that Sakaki displayed on her hand.
"Oh. Did you visit that same machine in Osaka?"

Heh. So that's why Kaorin reacted so badly when she saw it.

"She seems nice." Osaka noted. "Purple roses though."

"She seems nice," Osaka noted. (speech indicator)

Also, suggest: "Purple roses, though." (add a comma in between 'roses' and
'though')
 

In the CD player: "Plots" by Bjork.
What else goes good with Utena stuff?

(remembers the AMV) 'Bachelorette, also by Bjork, seems apt for Utena stuff
too.
 
Spell-check: This fic needs to go through a spellchecker. Badly. 'Nuff said.

Speech Indicators (General Rule): When there's a speech indicator (said, asked,
replied, pondered, elaborated) indicating that the dialogue (anything the
character says inside the quotation marks) is being said by the 'speaker'
(hence 'speech indicator'), and you're ending the speaker's dialogue with a
period instead of an exclamation point or a question mark, please replace the
period with a comma. If there's no speech indicator in the following statement
after the dialogue, then the following sentence is a separate sentence that has
nothing to do with the dialogue.

i.e. "I'll say something," Chiyo said. "Now see me say lots of things, but this
time my name 'Chiyo' will be in pronoun form to show that my dialogue and 'she
added' are not two separate sentences but one continuous sentence," she added.
"Oops, I think I made a run-on sentence!" She giggled. 

Fandom conventions: Minimize their use. I'm okay with their use, but like vocab
words, they shouldn't be overused. If you really have to make use of fandom
conventions, I suggest using them more subtly. Instead of 'facefault', use
'they fell down face first'. Instead of sweatdrop, use 'beads of sweat appeared
on their foreheads' or 'they sweated in sheepishness/exasperation/whatnot.'
Instead of 'chibify', they 'started to act childishly/immaturely/playfully.'
I'm sure you get my meaning, and you somehow get the idea because you were able
to describe SD-ing quite well... nevertheless, I'd advice not using the
'SD-ing' gag ever again, coz it'd be so passe to do so at this point of fandom.

Proofread: It's a very powerful tool, more powerful than a spellchecker. It
also gets rid of brain-fart mistakes (like disuaded --> dissuaded). To ensure
the best type of proofreading, I'd suggest you read your dialogue out loud.
This is the best indication you'll ever have of if it sounds right, makes
sense, and flows properly. If it feels weird to say it, chances are that it'll
feel very weird to read it. Make use of a thesaurus instead of a computer
spellchecker to check the proper spelling of words. Also, let your fic
percolate. If you have time, let it sit for a few weeks, then read it over.
Without what you think you wrote in fresh in your mind, you'll have a much
better chance of catching strange misspellings, nonsensical sentences, and
other problems. If you've just written the story, it's very difficult to edit
it yourself because you know exactly what it should say; so you read what you
think you wrote, rather than what you actually wrote. (paraphrased from Katsu
no Miko's Laugh In... j/k, her Guide to Writing Better Fanfics)

Aside from all that... Heh. This fic's really cute. Very Azumanga-ish (and I'm
glad, since Utena isn't exactly a fave or familiar anime to me). None of the
jokes particularly stood out as 'laugh out loud, Richard-Simmons-in-WLIIA'
types, but it did get a chuckle or two out of me. Fairly amusing, and mostly
cute. Ayumu Kasuga stands out like the showstopper that she is. Nice work.
Can't wait to see more.

Ja!
Abdiel


		
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