[FFML] [FanFic][SM] NETTG: Terra in Tokyo Ch.15

[Benjamin A. Oliver]

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 12:22 AM, Abdiel <chester.castaneda at gmail.com> wrote:
> Long time, no see... er, read, huh?

Indeed!  I thought I'd vanished into the great unknown.  Or you had.
Or the world exploded.

Perhaps it has already, but through some great cosmic intervention,
we're all back, thinking that months and months have passed when in
fact it was mere days ago when you posted your last review.  See,
we're not lazy--the space-time continuum is just working against us!!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. >.>

> ...No, I don't owe you any explanation for the lateness! :P

I also owe no explanations to anyone!  Because I've been right here...
sorting out my own head... and wasting time doing other things.  Like
finishing my education, working full time, and...

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Platonica
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Ameixia
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Vasque
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Dinner
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Stylin
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Dorfl
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Kayzee
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Terenas&n=Kayone

http://aq.battleon.com/Build30/charview.asp?temp=1244914

...Using eighteen GAJILLION hours to create and play a billion
characters on random online places!!  We don't do half-measures here.
Dang the torpedoes... FULL SPEED AHEAD!!  MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Chiyo:  Basugasubakuhakuhakuhakuhakuuu... hee-hee. ^_^;;

I mean, I've gotten the scripts for the NETTG:TEY comic written, and a
bunch of scripts for the sprite comic (over a hundred more than what's
currently posted), but, alas... keeping artists entertained and
motivated is a tricky proposition at best. (Still accepting
Applications for Sprite Artist for the webcomic if Chesu's seriously
moved on to bigger and better things!  I bet Esa wouldn't mind some
assistance for the line comic either.)

If I had a pair of eyes in the back of my head for each time... well,
I'd have a whole bunch of eyes, wouldn't I?  Well, that'd be fine.
Onwards!

> In any
> case, here I go. Hope you don't mind my lifting the curtain up a bit.

I like attention.  In fact, it's the craving for attention that got me
writing in the first place.  Glad you've come back to deliver this
lovely, lovely commentary!

> As such, here's the usual Internet copy-pasta provided by... you,
> actually:

Woo-hoo!!

> The below C&C is provided to you AS IS and WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. You
> agree to indemnify and acknowledge that the C&Cer will be held
> blameless for any damage resulting to including but not limited to 1)
> your mind, 2) the quality of your work, 3) your desire to continue
> writing the C&Ced work. You acknowledge that these comments do not
> belong to you, but rather that the comments are licensed to you for a
> limited one-chapter period. If at any time you disagree with these
> comments, this license is revoked and you must permanently delete all
> chapters, spamfics, and storylines from which edits based upon this
> C&C were made.
>
> [I agree to this License] (Continue Reading)
> [I do not agree to this License] (Delete email)

(writes a hack and bypasses the license entirely)

Mwahahahaaa!

> Oh, and fair warning... I've been cruising through TV tropes recently.
> Expect a deluge of anime and manga trope references littered
> throughout this fic; which is just as well, because if there's any
> work that loves to play with tropes, then it's this series. ;)

Me too.  It's a great site!  I look at one thing, and two hours later,
I've gotten a couple dozen tabs open, and it branches on out.

What I like about the site is that it teaches us that... cliches and
oft-used tropes are not bad.  It's what I've done with some of my
stuff.  Just because it's been used doesn't mean it's no good.

C'mon, I had Sailor Earth and a girl named Terra!  How much more
Sailor Moon fanfic cliched can you get?  You just need some nice herbs
and spices, then the story's fresh and ready to be served to the
masses!

Not everyone likes it.  That's fine.  How often can you get a hundred
people in a room to all agree on the same pizza toppings?  Are those
toppings bad in and of themselves?  Nah, just different preferences.
No worries at all.

> Once more unto the breach, dear friends... ^_^

KING ARBYFISH THE FIFTH:
Once more unto the mush, moie dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our Fungus bread.
In mould there's nothing so becomes a 'fish...

> On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 1:36 AM, Benjamin A. Oliver
> <benjamin.a.oliver at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, it's been long enough since I've last posted, and in the time
>> between my last post and this, the FFML has been revived and possibly
>> restored to its former glory, though only the posters and participants
>> can decide how involved it all gets.
>
> (shrugs) Well, here's some 'involvement' right now. How do you like
> these apples?

Nom nom nom... Roight tasty apples they is.  I don't usually find a
lot on the FFML lately that makes me stand up and take notice, but I'm
still on and waiting, watching for that rare, delicious story that
shall someday dot the web once again.

>> Thanks go out to Abdiel, who has reviewed in detail every last
>> chapter, ensuring that this story gets posted!
>
> My obsessive-compulsiveness has its upsides.

Indeed it does!  Without your dogged determination, this chance
encounter, meeting, and discussion will not likely have occurred.

>>        As the powers of the Moon Princess purged the elements of the Dark
>> Kingdom from the Starlight Tower, the Sailor Soldiers were also bathed
>> in its power, producing a euphoric effect bordering on pure ecstasy.
>
> Narrative: ...If you know what I mean.
>
> Fanservice for people with dirty minds?

If you like.  It was mostly to provide contrasts between the feelings
of the core Senshi and Terra; emphasize their differences and such.

>>        But not Terra.  She, rather, felt the energy rip through her body
>> painfully and sting fibers of her being that she didn't even know she
>> had.
>
> I like this plot point. If anything, it underlines the
> anti-heroine-ness of Terra, which is a wonderful way to put into
> contrast the powers and abilities of the Sailor Senshi.

Mark Doherty's Emerald made use (to great effect) of the fact that his
powers were incompatible with that of the main protagonist.  Perhaps
in a way I'm still fond of that sort of representation. ^^

> I also like the implication that, even though their powers are running
> on a different spectrum, Terra is still one of the good guys. Call it
> an emphasis on what made the old-school nineties anti-hero so
> effective once upon a time; it's not the dark powers or dire
> circumstances that define the anti-hero, but what he the good he does
> with it anyway that makes him so interesting.

Kind of, yeah.  Just because you're pure evil doesn't make you a bad person!

...

Well, put like that, yes, it does, by definition.

However, stuff that one may be afraid of, or that one considers
dangerous, may not in fact be pure evil--just misunderstood.

A cosmic horror like Terra may be quite difficult to understand, to
the point where when one thinks you understand her, you're in the
greatest danger of all.

> ...Of course, that's just the implication, and I highly doubt this fic
> will delve _too_ deeply into drama and angst. After all, that's not
> what NETTG is all about, isn't it? ;)

We can have some angst flavoring, provided no one feels sorry for the
character that's angsting.  Then we can get back up, brush ourselves
off, and get back to blowing things up.

Angst in a story isn't a bad thing.  It's a tool, like any other.
It's only bad when one uses it excessively and never let the character
get back up and have a crowning moment of awesomeness now and again.
Peaks and valleys make for a stronger story, or so I'm told.

Just because the universe got blown up and everybody died doesn't mean
it's going to have a sad ending.  In Sailor Moon, the Sailor Senshi
died in the past, and how'd that turn out?  They're alive and they've
all but conquered the world in the far future!

Then again, some might cite the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion as a
kind of happy ending.  Esa thinks it was, and he explained it to me
once, but I'm still working on comprehending that notion.
**twitch**spasm**twitch**

The story is about blowing things up.  If I have a "and they all
died," it's just so I can have a "He's Back!" moment with a "Crowning
Moment of Awesome."  Angst?  Worry?  Pain?  All an illusion.  If you
felt bad when it happened, then GOOD!  You were fooled and I gotcha,
so don't worry.  The explosions will commence soon.

> The unwelcome onslaught nevertheless felt quite familiar, and
>> she strained to remember where she had last experienced it.
>
> I think I saw a visual representation of it in NETTG: TEY. (shrugs)

Yeah, in the opening chapter, there's the GD getting blown away by QS's powers:

http://nettg.com/comics/index.php?page=6
http://nettg.com/comics/index.php?page=7

> Because the only thing that I can remember from NETTG: Original is
> ASK, his multiple personalities, and his Otaku-ken.

You can forgive a lot in a parody.  A whole lot.  It's when things get
serious that people start nitpicking.  In a parody, if there's a plot
hole...

Arby the Arbyfish(flutters in and places a lampshade on Ben's head):
There ya go!  (flutters off)

It's easily taken care of.

>> Tendrils
>> of her black power rattled in the gusting metaphysical wind.
>> Flailing, she grabbed onto its tails and held on tight, as if they
>> were the last remnants of the only remaining tattered blanket on a
>> planet of eternal frost.
>
> I like the epic descriptions in this part. It makes the monster inside
> Terra more horrifying and real and less of a plot point to give her
> fake character depth.

Fake vs. real character depth is a tricky thing.  Terra in this story
has a fair amount of real depth because she's actually done stuff.  It
hasn't just been said that she's done something--it was fully
described and shown.  Her pains and struggles were recorded and they
are a solid part of the character's record.  She started out as a
blank slate, and then stuff got added on gradually.

But if you hand me a character with a paragraph's worth of description
and tell me they can razor kick the Sun and beat the tar out of SSJ58
Son Goku, then it's not enough for me to suspend disbelief--that's
fake character depth.

...now if you have a series of very very very well-written novels
describing in depth and excellent humor how this character came to be
so powerful, I just might buy it.  With great power comes great
amounts of well-written text requirements.  Draw me a picture or a
manga and I'll believe it even faster, because when it comes to
fiction, seeing is quite often believing.

And yeah, angst doesn't automatically grant character depth.  Just
makes the character come off as whiny.  And that won't get ya many
points from me without something else to spice it up.

http://demotivators.com/whining.html

> ...As a btw, did Larry help you write this part or did you come up
> with this on your own?

Larry helped in this story a LOT.  This chapter got some significant
rewrites thanks to his intervention.  This part, however, was more in
response to him saying that something should be expanded.  I don't
think he wrote that particular paragraph.  I wrote it, but he
indicated that some of the stuff should be written.

I can go into epic prose mode if I know epic is required. ;)

> One of these days, a writer is going to deconstruct this series, such
> that they'll turn Terra Sue into a Villain Sue or, for comedic
> purposes, the distaff counterpart of Black Mage from 8-Bit Theater.
> But then again, she's not exactly a Knight Templar or having Deus
> Angst Machina, so let's just see how interesting and funny she is at
> being a Cosmic Horror trying to be a hero.

That's the goal!  Send her in and see what she does.  And no coddling,
either.  Gotta have an ArbyFish whip 'er into shape!  If you want a
power-tripping otakufic... well, maybe we've got some of that, but the
point is to throw the character in, take it out on the road, and see
who's boss.

Actually, we WANT strong main characters.  A whiny useless main
character isn't usually fun for me.  But too powerful is a bit much.

I saw the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon/movie with the addition of
Anakin's padawan.  Now, she was strong and effective, especially
against droids and had some unique tactics, but she was clearly
outclassed by main villains and higher-up Jedi.  I think she's a great
character addition--quite balanced.  I wouldn't have wanted her to
outdo Anakin or Obi-Wan, but if she were utterly useless and hopeless
without the main characters, why bother bringing her along at all?
Chop 'er tentacled Twi'lek head off and let's get moving on to more
interesting people.

We NEED strong main characters.  Again, like chili powder, there's
still something that we call too much of a good thing.

> She saw hallucinations, such as a little
>> armored monkey guy drinking tea with a bizarre chicken-lizard thing.
>> Three cheerleaders in go-go boots danced in a circle, swinging their
>> pompoms, one of them riding a mechanical bull.
>
> ...I gather this part was definitely and wholly written by you. Call
> it a hunch. ^_^

Oh, well, yeah, maybe just a bit. ^_~

>>        An empty calendar rapidly filled with pages of days with cute little
>> inspirational and guilt-trip quotes like, "Life would be so much
>> better if you actually listened to what your mother told you," or
>> "Don't fret a stubbed toe.  There's plenty more where that came from!"
>>  Her birthday popped up and passed, leaving its quote, "Doom, Doom,
>> DOOM!" far behind.
>
> The the Tex Avery Looney Tooniness commence! ^^ Who says flipping
> calendars is a dead trope? :P Certainly not TV tropes... and yours
> even have a weird, Pratchettish gag attached.
>
> http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExplodingCalendar

Subvert the trope a little and all's well. ^_^

>>        Next, all of this vanished and a spectrum of light and dark strobed
>> across her consciousness, and she fell for what seemed like ten
>> thousand years.  Actually, this last part wasn't so bad, except for
>> the sudden stop at the end.
>>
>>        "WRAAAAAAWWWHHHH!"  Thud.
>
> Terra somehow ended up using SuperBook and traveled back to Biblical times?

Basically.  I wanted a flashback, only... more interactive.

> (thinks about the implications of this event) ...Shit. It's either the
> world will become a Hello Kittyish paradise for furries, or be
> continuously assaulted by face-fulls of alien wing-wang. Probably
> both, knowing Terra

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

> (Hello Kittyish paradise for furries +  face-fulls of alien wing-wang
> = My Little Pony and Friends and the Non-PG-13 baddies they used to
> face?)

No, that's a normal episode of Thundercats.

>>        Okay, so it wasn't completely dark; a moment later, Terra could see
>> light from the stars coming in through the window--but this was
>> considerably darker than the flash of fireworks that Usagi--whom
>> everyone else had been calling Princess Serenity--had been shooting
>> off.
>
> I find that this is one of the most introspective parts of your work
> ever. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I have to wonder; are you
> completely sure about taking this route? This is NETTG we're talking
> about, after all. Besides which, you wouldn't want it to suffer from
> Cerberus Syndrome, now would you?
>
> http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CerebusSyndrome

Start funny then go into drama?

Well... a story has to fall into some kind of plot in order to have
that plot end, the story finished and wrapped up to put it on a shelf
and love it and reread it forever.

Otherwise it just gets more added, slowly, forever, until it's abandoned.

TinT was a story with an end in mind.  It still has the end it had
when I first wrote it.  It's not a good ending or a satisfying ending,
for the first full draft.  Chapter 17's getting some significant
overhauling, based on feedback.  (Hah!  People who wouldn't say
anything because they thought they couldn't influence the story which
was already written--HAH, I say!)

Besides, if we're following Terra around, it's only fair that we see
things through her eyes and interpret things based on what she knows.
Where's the mystery and discovery in the story if I give the whole
thing out and just let the reader watch the maze from above as the
little lab rat Terra bumps into walls and eats the wrong bits of
cheese?

So, we're following her around and we know what she knows when she
finds it out.  She is the title character for this little jaunt, after
all.

>> pretty downright posh.  It was rather big, too.  Just as well, she
>> thought, since her body felt like it just had its entire central
>> nervous system removed and grafted back in with a hot knife and
>> stitches.  She needed something soothing like that on her skin right
>> now.
>
> She's been transported into 4kid's infamous shadow realm.

"Stop or we'll shoot you with our invisible guns!!"

> It's
> initially painful, but once you get over the mental and physical
> trauma, you end up in the guest room of a spa. But only Cosmic Horrors
> get to go there. Redshirts and mooks get recycled over and over,
> naturally.

Can't waste a good redshirt.  Paid minimum wage, but by golly, they're useful!

>>        Where was she, though?  Certainly not her own room.  It kind of
>> reminded her of when she woke up in the hospital.
>
> Terra: It's almost a rehash of that scene, even. Huh.

A running gag, even.

> Lately she seemed
>> to have a habit of waking up in unfamiliar places, to unfamiliar
>> ceilings, and unfamiliar or unwelcome people.  This time, she at least
>> had a comforting voice to listen to.
>
> Must be nice to have reality bending powers such that, instead of
> dying when effused with the purifying light of everything that is
> good, you end up in a posh hotel with sateen sheets. Eat your hearts
> out, TARDIS! Holodeck!

Being the title character has its benefits.  The story can't
permanently kill you until THE END. :D

> Suzumiya Haruhi: (has a token cameo appearance simply because reality
> bending powers' was  mentioned)

Ah, Haruhi!  Just goes to show you can have godlike powers and still
be a fun character provided you don't KNOW you have such abilities.

>>        "Oh, yeah, Mom," Terra moaned back promptly.  "Rough night last
>> night.  Got used as bait for a trap, only we were the ones that got
>> trapped.  We fought and fought, but there were so many of them!  Then
>> we got backed into a corner, and were about to get squished, but then
>> Usagi turned into a princess, and I blacked out."
>
> Reminds me of Magical Project S, really. Heck, sometimes I mix up my
> visualizations of her Belldandy-like mom with Sasami Kawai's mom.

Glad her mom's got such an impressionable effect. ^^

>>        "A rabbit turned into a princess?  That sounds like a very intense
>
> Is this a weaboo litmus test? If you get the joke, you get geek points?
>
> Otaku: (boos, hisses at the w-word)
>
> (rolls eyes) I didn't realize it's a bad word.

A lot of NETTG's peppered with random references.  Some are in-jokes,
some are random references to other series.  Some of it's random junk
from my brain that happened to look exactly like something that
already exists.

You've read Tvtropes.  Just try to write a story without intersecting
with one of the themes. ^_^

>> dream," her mother said.  "But it's all better now.  You're back here,
>> safe in your room at the Imperial Lunar Palace."
>
> Heh. Back to the Future FTW.

Yup! ^^

>>        "IMPERIAL LUNAR PALACE?!!?" Terra cried and instantly bolted upright.
>>  The light went on--her mom must have flipped the switch.  She saw the
>> marble floors, elegant gilded decorations, expensive curtains, and
>> came face to face with the woman whom she had been speaking to.  "Mom!
>>  Wha--ah, you're so, so..." Terra searched for the proper words as her
>> eyes scanned the individual in question, "tall?"
>
> D'oh!

A wild coincidence that the conversation connects so appropriately
with the "Mom" remarks, of course.

>>        The woman looking at her with such concern was indeed quite tall.
>> Terra had seen shorter slam-dunking professional basketball players.
>> Other obvious traits the girl could have been considering about this
>> person included things such as the fact that she was not, in fact, her
>> mother.  Oh certainly, the face and voice were kind of the same, and
>> the expression was all too familiar,
>
> LOL. Well, anime does only have six-faces used and reused, the only
> thing changing is hair color and hairstyle. If only Terra would, one
> of these days, use a fiendish scheme to take advantage of Takeuchi's
> inability to draw more than six types of teenaged faces both male and
> female.  :P

Thus comes the confusion of why Sailor Pluto is sometimes referred to
as Mamoru in a dress!  The face types match up, though obvious
features make this obviously implausible.

It's why Ranma can pass for Lina Inverse, A-ko, and any other
red-haired character in all of anime!

"Meh, you know you all look alike!"

> (puts palm unto fist) ...Come to think of it, I guess that's the
> reason why anime girls have skittles for hair colors, huh? It's like
> another application of the palette swap, it'd seem.

Yup.  The helmet of hair is as good as a nametag.  They ask for your
I.D. and you show 'em your belt buckle!  Or something.

> but the floor-length
>> platinum-blonde ponytails were a dead giveaway.
>
> I gather... Silver Millennium flashback that's not quite a flashback, huh?

Correct.  Instead of remembering the past... Terra's now an active participant.

>>        "Before?" inquired Terra, drawing her sheets up to her chest over her
>> white nightgown.  "But we've only just now met.  Who are you, where am
>> I, and what's going on at this particular moment?  Are we enemies?
>> Where is Tuxedo Kamen?  Why can I see the stars in the sky outside
>> despite the sun clearly being directly overhead?
>
> LOL. Leave it to Terra to not let the Unusually Uninteresting Sights
> get away from her notice.

She's got Cosmic Horror on the brain.  Naturally her thought processes
would be a bit screwy.

> Why is my spine
>> intact?  Where are my clothes?  Did Arby steal them again?  What's the
>> deal with my hair?  It's kind of silky, yet jagged."  She glanced in a
>> large nearby mirror and got a good look at her bare neck.  "And who
>> removed that cursed mushroom mark?"
>>
>>        The girl thought through it to see if she'd missed anything else.
>
> Nope, she was plenty (and hilariously) thorough about it.

:D  Glad ya liked it.

>> She was somewhat thinner than she remembered being, perhaps
>> unhealthily so, as if she had been on a sparing diet since she was
>> seven.
>
> Art shift, huh? Strange, I could have sworn the eighties anime style
> was the more rounded style, while the nineties and the zeroies were
> the decades that ushered the 'famine-suffering gazelle' look nowadays.

Though that would perfectly describe the situation, I was thinking
that Princess Terra here would have been quite thin because typical
royal food wouldn't be to her liking.

http://nettg.com/fanart/esa/dinner.php

> I would just like to note, in the first one-fourth of this fanfic,
> that things are looking _great_ grammar-wise. :) Nice work.

We did go over it pretty thoroughly in an effort to give you more time
to actually read the story rather than nitpick errors.

I did catch a few in the next chapter that got past us.  Ah well.
Glad you're here to pick up on 'em!

>>        Her expression neutral, the tall lady seemed to consider her options,
>> and then softly took a seat by Terra.  "Very well.  I suppose... there
>> may be time.  What shall we... play?"
>>
>>        "Let's play," Terra replied, "'We're Total Strangers and Have Never
>> Met Before.'  And we've just met right now."  She forced a broad
>> smile.  "Hello.  How are you?"
>
> This would be disturbing when applied to Real Life(tm). If all a
> stranger needs to befriend a kid is the "We're Total Strangers and
> Have Never Met Before" game, then things will get screwed up fairly
> quickly.

Indeed it would.  Fortunately, it's between two people who
theoretically should know each other quite well.  (P.Terra,
Q.Serenity)

>>        "No," Serenity replied, her expression turning from somber confusion
>> to disbelief, as though she felt she were doing something totally
>> absurd.
>
> ...'as though'?