I've noticed a number of Eva fanfics with plot points that depend
on the use of the word "angel" to describe the nasty attacking
creatures, and the semantic confusion with "angel" as in winged-
messenger-from-heaven-who-works-for-the-forces-of-good that
occurs in English.

I just thought I'd point out in the interest of versimilitude that the
word for angel (as in winged-messenger-from-heaven-etc.) is
"tenshi", whereas the word use in Evangelion to describe the
enemy creatures is "shito", pronounced "shto", which means
"disciple".

The meaning is almost identical, I must admit, and it is in some
ways an even more pointed commentary than the use of "angel"...
but... um... ah, hell.  What's my point?  It's that the plot point would
simply not arise in a Japanese-language story.  Therefore it bugs
me.  Do I expect anything to change?  Not really; the reality is that
fanfic is written in English for English-speakers.  (Well, I saw a
nice ecchi Slayers fanfic in Japanese the other day, but that was
in a Slayers art book, and I never got a chance to sit down with
my dictionaries and get all the detail, and, um, let's not get off
topic anyway...)  Why am I writing this?  Um... darn good question.
A bottle of wine with dinner in a hotel, zonked after a day working
in a strange city, and my brain is fried.  Do I even care?  Not
really; after a futile hour of staring at the tatters of Nekophobia 9
in 800x600 resolution, I'm past caring.

Aw heck, maybe I'd better not send this.  I'd be better off
preaching about punctuation of speech in prose.  Then I
*know* nobody'll listen.  Maybe I should just keep my big
mouth shut.

Aw, f***it.  *send*

--
David Eddy - Senior Consultant, Progress Software Melbourne
dje@progress.com

Screening Coordinator and Subbing Bunny, Melbourne Anime Society
My fanfics are archived at http://nabiki.newberry.edu/DEddy