At 12:55 PM 1/01/98 -0800, Rhea Seraph wrote:
[snip]

Extremely dark Crystal Tokyos annoy me because they're not
Crystal Tokyo.  It's supposed to be a bright, shiny place, and while
nothing can stop someone from reshaping it to fit their story needs, it
feels contrary to the spirit to of the series to me to make it a dark
utopia.  It's the dream of a better future, not a nightmare.  

Oh, I agree. Happy places, by definition, are happy places(profound, no?) 
Personally, when I did the CT thing, I just wanted to show that even a nice, 
happy-shiny utopia isn't going to be liked by everyone. I'll have to do another
short one day, showing CT from another's eyes. One day when I actually feel like
it.

OTOH, extremely happy CT's annoy me just as much, because while it is the dream,
it feels... not right. There is an element of chaos in our souls, that ensures
that even when we have all that we want - peace, prosperity, love, whatever - 
we often feel for more, or for something different, or this, or that, or 
whatever we cannot attain, no matter how above or below us that is. The problem
I see with the idea of a sustained utopia (as opposed to a shorterm, which is
more possible) is the idea that it is a place of dreams fulfilled. And, as some
saying or another goes, 'Beware he who fulfills his dreams, for his is a life
with no meaning.' Or whatever. Point is, in the anime, we get most of our view
of the future from Endymion, so the version I did showed just how biased that
account could actually have been.

As far as mindcontrol, and all that, it seems to me more likely that the Senshi,
not Serenity, would do that sort of stuff, if they thought they were protecting
her. The vision of the Senshi being corrupt, and Serenity still being pure, 
isn't really explored very often that I've seen, especially not in CT stories.

I think it would also benefit the story if the main character wasn't
nameless.  While the Eternal champion has ties to many past and future
selves, he/she is never solely the sum of those pasts.  A name and some
idea of what this person looks like would help.

A name's a good idea. People were ready to strangle me by the end of the
second chapter because I didn't give the guy a name until the fourth chapter.
People need a name, sooner or later, or it really aggravates them. ^_^

(Mike Doherty, is, of course, free to disagree :))

(Hmmm... ok, so it's _way_ overtime I asked Artemis and Luna to change that
name stuff-up. {Huh... Mike... do I look like a Mike to you? ^_^ } )

************  
Mark Doherty  -  mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au
My spam/fanfics are at - 
http://www.tass.org/~mdoherty/index.html

"Time grows short, but I remain tall."