[FFML] [Sailor Moon] Double Exposure 1-4 [Dark/Comedy]

[Brian Randall]

On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 6:19 PM, Paul Durant <031537 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Responding to all four at once, to cut down on message volume.
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Brian Randall" <durandall at gmail.com>
>  To: "The Fanfiction Mailing List" <ffml at chez-vrolet.net>
>  Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 4:26 PM
>  Subject: Re: [FFML] [Sailor Moon] Double Exposure 1 [Dark/Comedy]
>
>
>  > Yeah, this is much delayed and greatly overdue....  So.  As usual,
>  > take what comments are worthwhile, ignore those that aren't.
>  >
>  All right then, I will. And for all spelling and grammar corrections, assume
>  I went ahead and made the changes unless I say otherwise.

Glad I could help.

>  > grey -- gray
>
>  I was under the impression that, what with Grey aliens and Grey Poupon,
>  spelling it with an 'e' didn't have to come with the whole suite of British
>  spellings for 'colour' or 'armour' or all that. I know spelling it 'gray'
>  never looks right to me.

It doesn't really matter, as long as you're consistent.  Technically,
it's not American English, but consistency typically trumps accuracy.

>  >>    Dr. Tomoe did summon such a creature, a being of warped, insane
>  >>  energy straddling between our world and theirs, but this was not his
>  >>  intention. Indeed, he's not even aware that it arrived in our world at
>  >>  all via the open portal he was using to test for the arrival of Pharaoh
>  >>  90. The Fader simply saw a gate to our world, took it, and traveled
>  >>  toward the nearest source of energy it could find. Luckily for Dr. Tomoe
>  >>  and unluckily for us, he was not testing the gateway in his own backyard
>  >>  or the monster would have fed on the equipment in his basement; instead
>  >>  the closest source was the cyclotron at Tokyo University.
>  >
>  > "straddling between" seems to be missing something to me, like
>  > "straddling the barrier between", maybe?
>
>  I think that's right, that you can "straddle" something to mean "sit on top
>  of it", but you can also "straddle" to mean "be on both sides of something"
>  (like an issue, or a dimension.)

You can, and it's not incorrect; it just reads a bit awkwardly to me.

>  > ZIING.  Bad pun.
>
>  You know what, I wasn't even making a pun there! I originally wrote "rinsing
>  out the autoclave" but I changed to because I didn't think people would
>  recognize what that was. (It's a super-oven used to sterilize equipment.) I
>  thought "centrifuge" was a more recognizable sciency thing, changed the
>  word, and forgot about it.

You reference an autoclave earlier, but I don't think it's
problematic.  Either way, what you have now works for the pun.

>  > ...I think that it would just piss Donna off to know what was going
>  > through Chibi-Usa's head right then.
>
>  In the sense that it's really condescending or in the sense that it isn't "I
>  need to get the hell out of this person's way"?

Both, but much more the former than the latter.

>  Oh, hell no. They barely pay their own agents, how the hell they gonna pay
>  your phone bill?

Mind powers?

>  >>    Akens shrugged. "Depends. If it is more in its dimension at the time,
>  >>  it just gets driven back. It vanishes. If it's more in ours, it's forced
>  >>  all the way in, and it should be unable to teleport or make use of the
>  >>  energy it's been storing up."
>  >
>  > 'Should' being the operative word here.
>
>  The word "Should" is a big flashing neon sign that says "THIS WILL NOT
>  ACTUALLY HAPPEN."

Yeah, that's how it read to me. <_<

>  > Tenses, again.  Or is that intentional?
>
>  I'm honestly not sure. It's what Pluto is thinking, and she's thinking about
>  what they think, in the present tense... it probably should be past tense
>  anyway.

Like I mentioned earlier, consistency is the key.  Pluto's tenses can
be messed up, as long as they're uniformly so.

>  > That's pretty DARK*MATTER textbook, as I understand it.
>
>  Well, yes. This textbook was "Xenoforms: Aliens, Demons, and Abberrations"
>  (TSR11648 like you even CARE)

Really?  I thought it was Alternity, when did TSR publish anything for
it?  On that note, 5 years later, I'm STILL trying to find a copy of a
complete Alternity core book. :(

>  > Aren't their transformation phrases and attacks actually in English,
>  > though?  Or would that have been too much...?
>
>  ELL brought this up, and I probably should not have said it in that way,
>  because it isn't in Japanese. I am going to say it's so heavily accented
>  that those present who didn't speak Japanese assumed it was, and didn't
>  puzzle out a meaning.

Works.

>  > Is this from the DARK*MATTER books?
>
>  Uh, somewhat? Bill, Philip, Donna, and Nadine are all sample characters from
>  the beginning of the DARK*MATTER book, the October 1992 Idaho truck stop
>  incident is the intro adventure they were made for, "Exit 23". They each had
>  two-paragraph "Background and Personality" writeups , but I added and
>  subtracted and recontextualized as necessary to make them more pathological.
>  Bill didn't need much changing, but the other three did.
>
>  The two other sample characters, Doug Nichols and Officer Jane McDermott,
>  are only in the musicals.

Ah.  Well, I like how you've sketched out these characters, then.

>  >>    Two gurneys are in the back of the ambulance, holding the two most
>  >>  wounded victims of the incident at the University of Tokyo. The eyes of
>  >>  the EMT back with them nervously flicker between the patients and the
>  >>  screens that show their vital data, wishing there was more he could do
>  >>  for them. The eyes of the two girls on the gurneys, the purple eyes of
>  >>  the short and frail one and the blue eyes of the blonde with the
>  >>  odangos, are blank and stare at nothing.
>  >
>  > Technically, odango is already pluralized.
>
>  I didn't think anything was pluralized? I mean, I know you don't add an S to
>  pluralize Japanese words, but that rule I broke intentionally. I didn't
>  think "odango" referred exclusively to multiple things, does it?

Not exclusively, and Americanization would have you put an S at the
end, anyway.  Just remain consistent, and the problem goes away on its
own.

>  > Should 'interdimensional' be 'inter-dimensional'?
>
>  I've seen "interdimensional" several times.

Good enough, then.

>  >>    By "their fault" she meant "Bill's fault", of course.
>  >
>  > Nice.
>
>  They're characters from an RPG system. You know you've had that type too.

Every game, more or less.

>  > One wonders if serving her oath is a coping mechanism, despite her
>  > statements not to worry.  Interesting.
>
>  Wonder no more, it very very much is.

Thought so.

>  > Should they be discussing this where she might wake up and hear?
>
>  Why? It's not incriminating, doesn't indicate she's a killer cyborg who
>  wants them dead. Nadine figures she would already know about it, like you'd
>  know about that time in the fifth grade you were wearing rollerblades and
>  holding a rope attached to a bicycle and you got dragged down the street
>  having a lot of fun until you hit a pothole and broke your collarbone.

Yeah, but you never know when someone will flip out over you
discovering their cybernetics and attempt to kill you to preserve
their secret. :x

>  >>    "So, wait, how does this explain her warping in with a magic scythe?"
>  >>
>  >>    Nadine's smile narrowed. "It... doesn't."
>  >
>  > Yeah, I figured.
>
>  But it's still cool, right? Guys? Come on...

Kind of.  It also raises a lot of questions.  Did Dr. Tomoe put them
there?  Or did they get there through some other means?

>  > Heh.
>
>  Well, do YOU want to get into a fistfight with Bigfoot?

Not particularly, no.

>  > Heh.
>
>  LIZARD-MEN CANNOT DRIVE STICK. This is important later.

I'll remember that.

>  > Isn't the director of the Hoffman institute a Gray?
>
>  Yes he is! And as fearsome as Isci ba Fan is, he's still a Grey with poor
>  impulse control.

Are they all that way?  Or is it just him?

>  > Nice.
>
>  If you'll permit me to be a slight bit pretentious, I'm trying to take a
>  standard crossover trope -- "we're organization from Series A and we think
>  that you, person from Series B, are everything we need!" -- and turn it
>  around: in this case, that declaration gets made through a childish loss of
>  sense and everyone else thinks it's a real bad idea.

Much like the readers would typically view the trope. <_<

>  >You know, this is a novel approach to cthulian intelligences.  It's
>  >not that we're too fragile to them, it's that we're too disgusting,
>  >much the same way we might view insects, or bacteria.  I've also never
>  >seen someone try and give this guy personality, so props for that.
>
>  Well, I can't take credit for that. That is how Isci ba Fan works, he can
>  possess people but he usually doesn't because it's goddamn gross. Of course,
>  Isci ba Fan as described in the "Xenoforms" book is significantly less
>  Cthulian than the Pharaoh, and neither one had a whole lot of personality,
>  so I did do something. Honestly? What I like best is the fact that he's
>  kicking his own ass for letting his squeamishness get in the way of
>  destroying the world, instead of laying ALL the blame on the Death Busters.
>  Nice to know your hateful alien intelligence can take responsibility.

Well, they're dead, so hard to blame anyway. >_>

>  PHARAOH RESOLVES NOT TO MAKE SAME MISTAKES!
>  Next: A whole bunch of new, different mistakes!

And that follows.

>  > Was it Monk?
>  >
>  > It was Monk, wasn't it?
>
>  Sadly, this is 1995, and Tony Shaloub is still on "Wings".
>
>  (It was the X-Men cartoon. Don't ask him why he didn't just turn off the
>  TV.)

Damn.  I had my hopes up for Wheeler as a Monk fan.

>  > Colorful language for a shoujo fanfiction, but about perfect for
>  > DARK*MATTER as I understand it.
>
>  Should I change it anyway? When it's just Senshi in the room nobody would
>  use that terminology.

Up to you, but it would make it less jarring to me.

>  > Donna's for letting Hotaru run off alone to try to take on Pharaoh 90?
>
>  No, but Donna's for taking shots at Bill. See how she agrees with why he did
>  it, but says "You totally weren't thinking about that at the time."

Point.

>  >And that's going to make an awesome (and totally unbelieved) story for
>  >the great-grandkids.
>
>  Assuming seeing it didn't give him a heart attack!

That would make a less awesome story.

>  Should I cut it anyway? It's a significant event, psychologically, but none
>  of them know that.

It adds background to her character, and it's privileged information
for the readers.  I say leave it in.

>  >...what was this thing made out of? O_o
>
>  A power transformer. That's why the power went out in the hospital.
>  Transformer turned into a monster.

Okay, makes more sense than tesla coil.

>  >Very high frequency, it seems. o_o
>
>  You mean, "Electricity doesn't even WORK that way?"

Well, that's already been observed. <_<

>  >>    "Bill, you said this was a mixtape, are there any songs on this that
>  >>  aren't 'Free Bird'?" Donna slapped the "off" button on the car stereo in
>  >>  disgust rather than switching to the radio. She mashed the 'eject'
>  >>  button on the tape deck with her thumb, meaning to throw the tape out
>  >>  the window, but apparently Bill became a damn mongoose when his Skynyrd
>  >>  tapes were in danger and he snatched it away from her in the blink of an
>  >>  eye.
>  >
>  >mixtape -- mix-tape -or- mix tape
>
>  I have always, always seen it as all one word, mixtape.

And I've never seen it that way, but that doesn't mean anything either
(I've never seen it written in any format whatsoever; all I know is
yours is the only one my spellchecker choked on (which also doesn't
mean much of anything)).

>  I went through like five different inro lines before I found one I liked.
>  But I'll be honest: I really, really like it.

It works.

>  >>    "Nooot exactly," said Nakami, chewing on his cheek a little.
>  >
>  > Isn't....  Isn't this guy a Grey?
>
>  Yes he is! But he can appear to be human, and he still has cheeks.

I know, but there's a certain irony to assuming it's his first time
flying.  His given answer is obviously better than, "This is just the
first time without anally probing someone," however.

>  >>    Yeah, something like that. You know the horrible boogeyman that

>  > So, I'm guessing that all of these daimons are being controlled
>  > directly by Number One Death, only, he's not as great at bossing them
>  > around as he thinks?
>
>  Close. He programmed commands into them like they did to the Mugen students
>  to get them to walk over to the school and give up their hearts. He just is
>  a really, really, really, really bad mind-programmer and didn't think of
>  like 85% of the situations the daimons would have to deal with. Or think
>  that they might need to actually communicate with each other, since he
>  doesn't really communicate with people, and thinks looking at what they are
>  doing and making a guess as to what that signifies is enough.
>
>  This is said explicitly later, if it was really bothering anyone.

No, makes sense.  And given how little he likes to directly contact
non-him intelligences, it's perfectly understandable that he'd put in
instructions and wash his psionic limbs as quickly as possible.

Number One Death: Wipe.  WIPE!  I need a wipe!

>  >>    Before the severed head even hit the sidewalk the daimon was gone
>  >>  with a 'POP!' and a puff of smoke. In its place was an ordinary
>  >>  commercial piledriver (though dented and beaten beyond use) and,
>  >>  floating above it, nine glowing red gems. They resembled the one on
>  >>  Hotaru's chest, though none of them were so ornate or had so many
>  >>  points.
>  >
>  > I may have missed this earlier ... should that be 'pile-driver'
>  > instead of 'piledriver'?
>
>  I always see "piledriver", but I always see it in the context of "wrestling
>  move". Are they spelled differently?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pile_driver

Wiki says you're okay.

>  > The worst of a Rosie and a Big Daddy, all in one.
>  >
>  > steamshovel-scoops -- steam-shovel scoops
>
>  Yeah, and it stops and pounds at every steam vent waiting for Hotaru or
>  Chibi-Usa to come out.

...you must write this fic, I think.

>  > I thought it'd be too big to fit!
>
>  It is, it scrapes the ceiling and can't stand, I will change it to say it
>  "tried" to rise to its feet.

That works.

>  > Ichi-Shi seems to be in denial, doesn't he?
>
>  "I will make my programmed daimons hate it when their work is interrupted,
>  so they won't want it to happen! That way, they will find a way to make sure
>  they are left alone even if my program doesn't cover how they're supposed to
>  respond! This is exactly how programming demon brains works."

Why not?

>  >>    That's why when the monster spun to face her, pinkish ooze leaking
>  >>  out of its lower body, it was able to backhand her into a wall without
>  >>  her dodging it.
>  >
>  > Mm.  She's going to have to overcome these confidence issues, methinks.
>
>  Well, wouldn't you? Even if you weren't also the Messiah of Silence, you
>  wouldn't be used to being able to kick ass all of a sudden.

Used to it, no.  But having played as many video games as I have, I
would totally embrace it.  ...then, of course, my attack names would
be things like, "Mash B!" and, "Cheap Upper!"

>  > Score one for the mortal!
>
>  Well, if mortals can't kill them, what does everyone outside of Tokyo do
>  when youma and daimons show up?
>
>  (in chapter 7 I reveal it involves explosives, power tools, and on occasion
>  jet engines.)

Makes sense.

>  > That stuff tastes nasty. :x
>
>  I never got to taste it, I coughed it out as soon as I inhaled.

Take my word for it.  It tastes like eating cobwebs, only vaguely
poisonous, too.

>  > teach her to -- teach her not to (?)
>
>  I have heard it used like that. "That'll teach ya to take the car without
>  asking," etc. Closeley related, I suspect, to "that'll learn ya."

Either or, then.

>  > I'm not sure I want to know, either. o_o
>
>  I know I don't!
>
>  ...shit.

TOO MUCH OF A CLUE!

>  > Oh, the MIB.  Was wondering what took them so long.
>
>  Oh, these are men in dark suits. The MiB show up in the next chapter. You'll
>  be able to tell.

...dag-nabit.

>  > The Faraday cage?  That's....  'kay.  Those are so easy to make, one
>  > wonders why they'd bother.  But then, these are the people who
>  > confiscated everything Tesla owned after his death, so....
>
>  The answer to this and many other questions: Because they are dicks.

Booooo.

>  > I'm surprised they didn't elect to keep Makoto another day. >_>;
>
>  She wouldn't let 'em! And I would like to see them try and keep her! Well,
>  they could probably just stick her with some Thorazine or whatever, but
>  still. They didn't know she was walking on her leg, they thought she tripped
>  or something, so it wasn't as urgent.

Fair enough.

>  > Also, some malaprop.
>
>  Damn it, how did I miss that opportunity? Some mangling of "too many chiefs,
>  not enough Native Americans" needs to go here.

That's about exactly what it needs.

>  > Wait, she gets the benefit without having to pay for it?  HAX!
>
>  She doesn't get to see through illusions, she had to be told Hotaru and
>  Saturn were the same person. I wrote that before I decided why people
>  freaked out when a daimon came around, and she doesn't have to pay for
>  anything. all player characters explicitly are immune, as are most named
>  NPCs.

Hm.

>  ps in advance: YES I know the mechanic for daimon-freakouts doesn't fit for
>  half the stuff that happened. GET OFF MY CASE. It was hard enough to come up
>  with a justification that fit anything that still fit the quality of
>  "mechanic".
>
>  Nothing about how she didn't do the mystic meditate-under-a-waterfall
>  kung-fu mind training because she had to go to a wedding?

Well, it does make sense, sort of ... I found the psychic dying bit
funnier, though. >_>

-- 
Brian Randall