On 11/24/06, Abdiel <gabriel_gabdiel@yahoo.com> wrote:
Standard C&C Disclaimer: I'd just like to remind you before we begin that I am
not God. At least not the Judeo-Christian God, as conventionally interpreted.
How about unconventionally?
"If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes
enchiladas, because that's what He's getting."
-Jack Handey
Specifically, I am not omniscient. I may question something that happens in
your story which is, in fact, Actual Series Canon. I have precious little
experience with many 'Actual Series' events, and a lot of my perceptions are an
agglomeration of years of fanfics, numerous anime/cartoons/TV
shows/movies/books of both old and new, and assorted other tidbits.
Well a'course! Gotta 'ave a bizarre mix of perceptions. Hard to be
random and confuse people with a strange wit if you don't have varied
experiences. How else ya supposed to confuse people if ya don't know
what'cha talking about?
Or rather, it's even better if you don't. ^_^
Further, I am not omnipresent. I will say things shaped by my experiences;
other people more than likely have different experiences. If you've got five
thousand responses saying your story is the greatest thing since sliced bread
and I (pardon the pun) pan it, that's not indicative of any greater knowledge
on my part, merely a different perception/expectation/what have you.
Alternately, if I pan a story, that doesn't preclude the possibility that other
people reading it later will think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread,
so to all you readers reading this: Don't let me stop you.
You can't stop me! No one can! They thought I was mad--MAD, I SAY!
But I showed them, OH YES!! I showed them... Mwhehehehehehehehhehehe!
Finally, I am not omnipotent. If I say something should be changed, you do not,
in fact, have to change it, if you don't want to, and you will not be visited
by plagues of frogs or anything of the sort. If you're satisfied with a story
the way it is, or with any factors I've said should be corrected, then leave
it.
Well, you're a reviewer. Gotta pay heed to what you say. Wouldn't be
proper if I didn't.
Oh, and oftentimes I'll rant. God generally doesn't.
There's big old chunks of Exodus that closely resemble rantage...
And my current victim is... ;)
...it's Timmy the Monkey! How ya doin', boy?
On 4/10/06, Benjamin A. Oliver <boliver@email.arizona.edu> wrote:
G'day again!
Magandang umaga din sa iyo. And by 'umaga', I don't mean the wrestler.
Habari, bwana. ^_^
Yo quiero Taco Bell...
Rantage first.
Of course. ^_^ It's a staple of this story, it is.
In-deed!
Got some commentary on the previous chapters that Arby's
characterization may have been a bit excessive, and his dialogue's painful to
read and such.
The thought has crossed my mind while C&Cing that particular chapter, but then
again... it's the ArbyFish. Him making sense is like the world making sense,
and we can't have that, can we?
'Course! Can't very well go round making sense. Then they'd go and
pigeonhole ya and stuff ya into boxes and ship you around for 9.95 a
crate. Then who'd pay the wizzle-washers, then, eh?
So... I may modify a few of the choppy bits in future chapters
such that it's the translation from his unique brand of Cockney into
dictionary-perfect English.
Heh. You can also make a subtitle below his dialogue reminiscent of the l33t
guy (no, not Largo) in Megatokyo or the subtitles in Austin Powers, if you so
choose. ^_^
Hmm...
Arby(hops atop Terra's head): G'day, ya li'l snort. Today, we shall
mine the mumphing mouldcakes and plump the poofing pachederms!
*Translation: Hello, young girl. On this wondrous occasion, we will
have a pleasant walk and a pleasant talk concerning the important
matters at hand.
Terra(flips frantically through a dictionary): Umm...
One reader was actually hoping for a version of
NETTG without any ArbyFish in it. ^_^
I myself am hoping for an Atomic Starlight Knight-less NETTG, but since he's
not atomic anymore, I got a quarter of my wish. :P Then again, the goofy little
author avatar grew on me as he bungled around in this version of NETTG, so I
may give him another chance. ^_^ Imperfection and well-meaning blunders make
the heart grow fonder for an overpowered fictional character and some such.
My theory is that it isn't SIs and Mary Sues that are bad in and of
themselves. It's the characterization they often end up with. Or
rather, just change their character type and all is well. ^_^
An NETTG without ASK... Well, there's the hand-drawn comic that
doesn't have ASK yet. And it's possible it never will unless I find
new ways to motivate Esa into drawing. ^_^ (Or get another devoted
artist to help that draws quicker and doesn't mind vague
instructions.)
But... NETTG without ArbyFish? That'd be like having a flambe without
lighting
it on fire! Wouldn't be proper. Gotta take your silliness with the story.
Else there'd be no ups and downs and such. But... if I wrote NETTG in pure
seriousness, with lots of dark, it'd be a radically different creature. Much
more depressing, and perhaps WAFFy in parts.
(shrugs) You had to do what you had to do. Like Ms. Bibat
said/quoted/paraphrased, drama is easy, comedy is _hard_.
Everything is easy, except that which is hard. Or rather, nothing is
impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
I'm not sure I wrote the first NETTG to be a comedy piece, but it just
sort of ended up that way. I guess it's just my preferred style. ^_^
Later on, the story does turn sort of dark-ish.
O_o I couldn't imagine. Seriously, I just couldn't.
Well... remember Trigun? Some series do radical changes once the
initial bits are done.
On the other hand, there's NGE, which started exciting but depressing,
then ended just plain depressing. ^^
Larry F, who works with me on
the comic and hosts my fanfics, warned me to warn the readers that this story
isn't quite like your typical NETTG. It's like reaching for a drink and
expecting kool-aid,
(shrugs) kool-aid --> Kool-aid (tm)
Just because I'm pretty sure the people at Kraft Foods don't want this word
'genericized' and some such.
It's Marketing, y'see! Gotta drink the Marketing Kool-aid, Inc. (tm) Ltd.
he mentioned, only to discover that it's been spiked with
Everclear. The story at the end is quite different than the story when it
starts. The one codenamed Chesu, who works on the sprite comic, says it's
like
it was written by 14 different people.
Suggest: 14 --> fourteen
Grammar Rule #fifty-six: Usually, it's better to spell numbers out, but
sometimes that isn't the case.
Right-o! I'll keep that under advisement.
It's NETTG, the Improfanfic! And yet again, the Temporarily Misplaced Poster,
one of the Improfanfic's authors, goes ballistic when a newbie author churns
out a chapter that doesn't quite meet his expectations and high-standards.
Hell, he even gets angrier after the newbie author rejected the 'replacement'
chapter he made in order to keep the 'purity' of the improfic series. :P
Mwahahaha. I don't even need to employ other people to do an
improfanfic. The voices in my head handle it just fine! ^_^
I wrote different bits and different chapters while I was in various
moods and listening to various kinds of depressing music. Seriously,
I was listening to Les Miserables over and over again while doing the
chapters.
I fear I may have employed different
personalities in a similar way to how some of my own characters have
difficulty
sorting out their thoughts.
If Self-Insertion/Mary Sue-ism/Author Avatar-ism/heck, fanficcing in general
shows a reflection of the author, then... I worry about you, Mr. Oliver.
If what I wrote was wish-fulfillment fantasy, I'd worry about me too. o_O
But it's like some have said. Sometimes you write because you want to
work some stuff out in your head, and sometimes you write for other
people.
This story... was partially for me, to get this out and written. But
it was also to mess with the heads of readers; to overcome the "hey,
you can't do that in a story!" limitations. Or maybe to just get over
writer's block. That was probably it.
Now a bit about the story where it's at. Terra Incognita started as a ditzy
girl without working access to much of her brain.
It was fun, in a Homer-Simpson-in-the-later-seasons-of-the-Simpsons sort of
way.
Terra: So, I'm a new Sailor Senshi, then?
Arby: In-deed! ^_^
Terra: I see. Let us celebrate this arrangement by the adding of
chocolate... to milk...
That changed radically when
the Star Light Knight came up and whacked her in the forehead with a
gas-powered electric guitar, unsealing the portions of her mind that had been
locked away. Now, she's become a magical girl of the classic sort. She even
has a cute animal sidekick to boot!
Sasami Kawai: (pouts kawaiily)
Pretty Sammy may have been magical girl parody once, but now it's
firmly joined the genre! ^_^
Unfortunately, this magical girl doesn't get a very helpful assistant. She
would have absolutely LOVED to have someone like Luna or Artemis to work and
reason with.
Instead she got a mutated Keroberos with a Cockney accent and a malicious
streak?
Pretty much. Flies around, makes her do stuff, messes with her head...
Really, I'm not sure any other magical girl could have handled Arby as
a sidekick.
Arby(hops out of the Clow book, hops on Sakura's head): Roight, yew
let the cards out, so now ya's gots ta go gets em. (pokes Sakura with
a stick) C'mon. Hop tew it!
Sakura(O_O): ...
Arby: 'Ere, 'ave sum mushrooms down ya pants. *stuff stuff stuff*
Sakura(@_@): I KNEW that milk was spoiled...
She would have done well with someone such as Makona,
Makona --> Mokona
Oh, so it is.
<(^_^)> Puu!
Gee, I dunno... judging from the manga ending of Rayearth, putting these two
together is like having two egos of two self-inserted Mary Sues colliding.
Gorilla Monsoon: It's the irresistible force meeting the immovable object!
Mokona Apapa vs. Terra Incognita... Author Avatar Battle, go! :P
*Jamming bass electric guitar rock and roll death metal versus battle music!*
Terra(glances around): Uhh... where's that music coming from? Does
this mean we have to kill each other?
Mokona(grins, nods)
and would
have done great things with a creature like Ryo-Ohki.... Had she had been
given the opportunity to work with Yuuno from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
(who
can freeze time, trap enemies, travel through dimensions, use esoteric magic,
and who's really a cute boy, to boot!)
But he's still a weasel... Oh well. Nothing's perfect. If I wanted to watch
perfect, faultless, multi-talented boys, then I might as well watch Gensomaden
Saiyuki. The prettier boy wins.
Hmm... Do any of the Gundam Wing cast qualify, or do they have much in
the way of character flaws?
Oooh, a magical girl who gets her powers from her new magical mascot,
Heero Yui. I'd LOVE to see someone try that someday. XD
As Terra rushed toward the burning jewelry shop, a part of her mind
chided her
for not having called the police or fire department.
Pffft. Superheroes don't do that. The common sense thing, I mean. Nice and
complicated is where it's at in the superhero world.
Yup! I mean, it's not like...
1970s Superman(gasps): City Hall is ablaze! I will use my super
speed--(grabs a phone and dials 911)--to call the fire department!
Another part of her
psyche retorted by saying that if the building was on fire, the automatic
systems would have already tripped alarms, not to mention any passers-by that
passersby (dictionary-verifiable word, no need for the hyphen)
Fixed in my copy. I figured passers-by would work, but I guess it
doesn't. Ah well.
Grammar Rule #73: Compound-descriptors should be hyphenated, and non compound
descriptors should be separated.
Right-o! So what does that MEAN, anyway?
Arby: Oh, well, ya gots ya compound badgers, which ya should dump
mould on, and ya non-compound badgers, which prefer the cloimate of
sloightly boiled cheese.
Oh, okay. It all makes sense now....
The Legions of Darkness, now those would be awesome to fight
against, or even the Xenon Predators.
'Xenon Predators' sounds Engrish enough to work as an actual villain in anime!
Yup! I don't think it actually exists though. ^^
Plus, where there were great
battles, people got hurt, most especially the key players in them. And when
it
was all over, sometimes all that was left was an empty battlefield and razed
landscapes. There really was no good point to fighting, in the end.
On second thought, maybe she really didn't want to be a heroine.
Heh. Damn that intellect of hers and her constant backpedaling and second
thoughts.
Yeah, it's possible to overthink things and in the end, that just
paralyzes you into inaction. I think it's a major cause of some forms
of writer's block.
But it's nice to have some magical girl with second thoughts about
what she's doing. I guess that's what they call depth.
"No!" Terra shook her head and fought to regain her determination.
"Naru's in
trouble, and I have to save her."
Gee, Terra sure developed a lot since her days as the evil monster child of
NETTG.
It's a different Terra. Terra Incognito is the demon child, Terra
Incognita is the weird depressed confused thing constantly tormented
by her mind and Arby.
Besides, even if all that was left in the end
was a blackened landscape, not fighting at all would be much worse. After
all,
that's why the fighters were willing to leave behind razed villages in the
first place: in giving up, what the enemy could do to you paled in
comparison
dying in battle.
You're missing a 'to' in between 'in comparison' and 'dying in battle.'
Gah! So it is. Fixed in my copy.
Grammar Rule #38: Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
...As much as humanly possible, anyway.
But you mean we can't proofread till it's inhuman and cruel to the
author and prereaders? ;_:
Terra took a deep breath. She had been waiting for this. It was time
to pick
a new secret superheroine name she could be proud of, one much better than
the
one she'd been given. "I am... the Eternal Warrior, the Defender of the
Earth
and Paladin of Justice. In the name of my ancestors and the honor of the
righteous, I am the Holy Warrior --"
"Nope! Don't listen to 'er," Arby interrupted, fluttering in front of
her.
"She's really just th' Li'l Anklebiter, Sailor Chibi-moon."
Hehehe.
'Course!
"I am... Sailor Moon, Champion of Justice! I right wrongs and punish
evil, and
in the name of the Moon, you're punished!"
Naru sighed. "Oh dear, here we go again."
Heh. And here I thought Terra took over the whole Superheroine thing.
She thinks she wants the job, but when it comes down to it, it's
really too much hard work. Terra's only sometimes proper heroine
material.
feel any different than she did before "transforming." If she got any powers
from it, she certainly couldn't feel them.
W-ell, seeing that she had quite some power from the get go, however latent it
may be... Then again, maybe it's because she's Sailor Chibispore, and Sailor
Chibispores were never meant to be powerful. Also, I won't put 'screwing with
her head' past ArbyFish.
Yup, she's got tons of power, but no idea how to use it. And her
figuring out and remembering how to use that power was certainly
curtailed by Arby's appearance.
What she got amounted to basically
just a costume--and not much of a costume, at that. It was more like what
young gold-digging Japanese socialites might
Suggest: young, gold-digging Japanese socialites
I agree. Fixed in my copy.
wear to impress rich, lecherous
old men that might happen to pass their way. Actually, if that were the
case,
then....
Actually, it's much darker than that. It looked like a lolicon's dream costume.
Indeed it does, at that! Still, no need to mix that sort of concept
in with the story just yet. There'll be plenty of time for angst
later. ^^
One possessed woman chucked her heavy purse at him and hit him
squarely on the
chest.
"OOOF!"
<<snip>>
Lepardu(a pair of fake bunny ears tied to his head via a headband and
carrying a pair of scissors): Mmm... Du make like bunny, den
snip-snip!
"GAARGH!" the man yelled as he was beaten in sensitive areas and
mercilessly
clawed at. He took out his cane and frantically retaliated. His jacket got
ripped off and his shirt torn in the violent scuffle.
Heh. 'Ey, look over there! Fanservice for the many 'fans' of Tux-boy. ^_^
Certainly, Megane 6.7'll love all _that_. :P
XD Just more material to come back and bite Terra with later.
The masked man fell off the lampost,
lampost --> lamppost (yeah, really, it's spelled that way... with an extra 'p')
Right you are! Fixed in my copy.
Now, Terra liked a good-looking guy in a tuxedo. If somewhere along
the line,
he mystically ended up wearing less than that, so much the better. She
continued cheering him on.
Er, what is this? 'Rip the clothes off the stripper' night at Chippendales?
Terra(cheers at Tuxedo Kamen's state of undress): Woo-hoo! Get naked! ^_^
Ermh... Yeah.
"Thank you so much for rescuing me!" the girl beamed at him. He
smelled nice,
too, she noted to herself. He was good-looking, heroic, and liked formal
wear.
All in all, this fit well into her definition of a "cute boy." She wondered
if
Extra space before 'All in all', please get rid of that (unless, I suspect,
it's my wacky yahoo mail client doing the weird formatting)
It was probably my wacky mail client doing the formatting. Double
spaces between sentences. Dunno where I picked up that nasty habit,
but it managed to stick.
"--Sailor Chibimoon. This is obviously your first time at this. But
what I
said was true. If you believe in yourself--and perhaps train a bit--you can
beat any enemy. These people here will be all right when they wake up." The
man looked a little chagrined. "But next time, please do some of the
fighting
yourself."
Ha. Put your money where your mouth is, Tux-boy.
:D Yup, it's kind of odd to have him do all the fighting while the
magical girl being protected does absolutely nothing. Kind of a
reversal of roles, as it were.
Her name, he somehow knew, would be Sailor Moon. The perky redhead
he'd
encountered hadn't been at all what he expected. He thought he'd find some
sort of typical damsel in distress, not an incompetent, cowardly Sailor
Senshi.
Ah, about that...
Sailor Moon: I beat the youma in the first episode by crying really loud before
waving my shiny discus thingy! ^_^
That she did! There was another episode where she got out of some
kind of droid mental attack by being proud of being a whiny, wimpy
girl.
"Wow, Sailor Moon," Naru gushed, stars in her eyes. "Not only did you
manage
to destroy the youma and rescue me, but you also dashed into the fire, broke
into the safe, and rescued my mother who was being held there!"
Sailor Moon brushed back one of her ankle-length blonde ponytails and
blushed.
"Aww, it was nothing."
It's always nice to see a Sue that can actually make the canon protagonist look
_good_ in comparison. ^_^;
Terra is just awful, starting up, isn't she? ^_^
Gotta do that to have contrast, y'see.
Naru turned towards the Knight in green Shining Armor, adding, "And
when that
monster called for its master, who opened a gate and summoned dozens of evil
creatures into our dimension... Star Light Knight, it was really incredible
when you pulled out that huge gun and blasted them all to kingdom come.
And it's amazing how much territory we're covering by making use of 'tell, not
show' in a 'show and tell' way. Narrate some more, Naru. The narrative needs
the rest. :P
NETTG:TinT for me was an interesting mix between "show" and "tell."
I've discovered that you use "tell" to speed up the action and explain
the story to cover up bits that have been missed. You use "show" to
make the rest believable. If all you ever do is "show," you end up
with chapters that are bigger than novels. Oh wait... ;)
The Star Light Knight blew the smoke off the barrel of his large
gatling
weapon, hefting it on his shoulder.
Heh. That's one of the few things that I begrudgingly admit to be cool about
the Star Light Knight formerly known as Atomic.
Intimidation through property damage. Anyone could appreciate that.
"Oh, right!" Sailor Moon whispered back. She saluted Naru. "Anyway,
we have
to be going now, but... wherever there's evil youma to fight, we'll be there.
Wherever there's people
there's --> there're
Changed it to "there are."
Mrs. Osaka was just recovering from the shock of it all. "Hmm. Your
uncle
Al's still in New Mexico working on some top secret project again, so let's
find a hotel instead."
I'm guessing that's either a McGuffin or a foreshadowing device.
A red herring/reference to the other series. Her uncle Al works on
the Quantum Leap project.
Terra ran her hand through her hair in exasperation. Her fingers
collided with
one of the jeweled barettes.
barettes --> barrettes
Oops, fixed.
Grammar Rule #0: Watch out for speling erors and typoes.
D'oh! Larry and I are kind of embarrassed about missing those.
"You know, you make it so hard to think--"
They'd be quite the pair if Terra still just had, er, half her mind.
She'd be happy and ditzy and bounce along with Arby the ArbyFish,
merrily along the Barbituate train to Dark and Deranged Fantasy!
Usagi gasped. "Umm, no, no, you must be mistaking me for... aww,
nuts."
Suggest: for... Aww, nuts." ('Aww, nuts', despite being a fragment, is a
standalone clause and should be capitalized accordingly when using an
ellipsis).
Mmm... okee-du. Fixed with that correction in my copy.
"It was more a lucky guess than anything else," Terra said in order to
not
complicate matters further. She could explain later, if it came down to it.
"I'm Terra, Sailor Chibimoon."
I see that the unsaid 'revealing of secret identity only to people who need to
know' rule is in effect.
Well a'course! Wouldn't be proper. I mean, if YOU ran around at
night in a sailor suit and a miniskirt waving around a magic wand, how
many people would you want to know?
It'd be another one of those embarrassing things that you wouldn't
even let your own mother in on...
"Ireland?" Terra replied, but then wished she hadn't. Saying it like
that was
more of a smart-alec
smart-alec --> smart aleck
Oops, fixed.
"Hi, Luna!" Terra greeted enthusiastically. "I'm Terra."
"Ermh," Luna said akwardly, "hello."
akwardly --> awkwardly
Fixed again. Can't believe I missed that one. I was so sure I ran
this bugger through a spell-checker.
"Sailor Scouts? Is that what we're called?" Eeww, thought Terra.
That was
such a dorky organizational name. The Counsel of Justice she could take, or
even the Defenders of Peace and Love, but Sailor Scouts?
(raises an eyebrow) "The Defenders of Peace and Love" is better than "Sailor
Scouts"? Is she mad?
Terra(eyetwitch): Mad? MAD??? MAD, YOU SAY? (twitch) Maybe... a
little perturbed at the world's situation, but certainly not mad!
(twitch, twitch, twitch)
Her brain's messed up. She's bound to have some odd thoughts
somewhere along the way.
"Naaah...."
"Sailor Commandos?" Chibimoon tried to bargain again.
"Sailor Soldiers?" Usagi conceded.
Terra smiled. "Deal."
(sweatdrop) Wow. And here I was expecting a punch line. But yeah, agreed.
Sailor Soldiers it is.
I couldn't think of a good punchline, so we just let that buildup fall
flat. I was in a hurry, after all. ^_^
The cat raised a paw. "Err, before you two go on and change
everything we
stand for, I'd really like to know how this happened."
Heh.
Struggling to maintain control of a slippery situation...
crawling with oozing, squelching
mushrooms. "AAAH!" Most notably being consumed were her books and her
homework.
Heh. Yeah, doing the balancing act of making a potentially overpowered (highly
intelligent, incredibly strong, probably has more powers than Superman)
character into a sympathetic one by means of putting him/her in Murphy's
Law-type of situations is indeed a staple of well-rounded characterization.
Yup! If you want ultimate power, you have to be willing to sacrifice
your soul for it!!!
Er, I mean, you need to have enough counterbalance to keep the
character humble. Humble through experience, not through just natural
perfectness.
Just ask Takahashi's bitch, Ranma.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's one reason why we like Ranma. He's
generally a nice guy and gets really powerful, but he gets beaten down
lots.
That works for Goku, too, really. Name one major fight where his body
hasn't been beaten to near beyond recognition before he turns around
and wins.
It adds a bit of good ol' conflict in the
story to boot. Fanfic writers of uber-powerful characters should take note of
this, though they should take care in not going overboard and making their
characters seem like a pity-beggar martyr Cinderella/Harry Potter (when with
the Dursleys) types; that's just annoying.
Yup. There's a balance to strike. Just absolutely horrid situations
don't make us sympathetic to characters. It's a lot of their
personalities and such too.
"Argh! You're very troublesome, you know that?"
"In-deed!" His work apparently done for now, he fluttered out the
window,
leaving Terra a sack full of confusion in his wake.
"Oh, it's a Sack o' Confusion," Arby called back. "Koinda loike a Bag
a'
'Olding."
^^; So much for metaphors, eh?
Arby(holds up a No Metaphor Zone sign): In-deed!
The next day, at school, Terra still had drag her new, potentially
dangerous
Erm, somehow I don't think 'Terra still had drag her new' is a
grammatically-correct statement; if it is, please explain just how in the world
it became grammatically correct. Perhaps I'm merely misreading it. Otherwise,
methinks it's a car-wreck sentence that needs to be scrapped immediately.
Suggest: still had drag her new --> still had to drag her new (change the verb
'drag' into the infinitive 'to drag')
'Tis!
The next day, at school, Terra still had to drag her new, potentially
dangerous bookbag to school and explain her distinct lack of homework
to her teacher.
I hate it when I miss those pesky linking words. Gets very embarrassing.
And keep in mind, I wrote the vast majority of TinT while:
1) Exhausted after a long day at school, starting at past midnight
2) All day long in a marathon session, determined to get a chapter
done that very day
"But it's true!" Usagi interjected. "Aliens DID abduct my homework!
It's
probably out in the middle of a cornfield by now, naked, beaten, and lonely!
Don't you have any sympathy?!"
Heh. I like your portrayal of Usagi. She's almost M. Hudson-like in execution.
:P
Hehe. ^_^
M. Hudson: All those who oppose, bash, and mischaracterize Usagi will be
crushed... so please don't. Pretty please?
Well, the characterization just seemed to fit for the purposes of the story.
Terra Incognita looked at her companion. Just staring into those
sweet,
innocent eyes of her, she could feel the warm welcome, and smiled back.
"Yeah,
me too."
Suddenly, despite the rotten things that had happened, even outside in
a form
of undeserved detention, the world didn't seem so bad after all.
Awwww. Who would have thought that a gag-a-minute NETTG chapter could contain
such a sappy--WAFFY moment? It's nice to see you widening your horizons outside
of a gag-based, parody-filled comedy.
Well, hit me upside the head with enough chapters, and eventually I'll
come up with a WAFFy moment. The law of averages. Or like how if you
get an infinite number of monkeys, they'll eventually compose a nice
Shakespearean play.
Sailor Kawaii: He's... cute in an aggressive masculine sort of way.
Suggest: aggressive, masculine
Fixed in my copy.
Sailor Nuke: He goes ahead and blows stuff up! THAT's how you're supposed
to
Suggest: THAT'S how/THAT is how
Sailor Nuke: (nukes me)
THAT'S what I'll do.
Right-o! ^_^
deal with problems! Sailor Nuke sez. BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAA!!
Sailor Kawaii: But if you can't do that, then focus on looking pretty and
make
someone else do the work. Sailor Kawaii says! Tee-hee!
Hmmm. We got a bit longer a story this time around. Does it keep up with the
general high-quality of this fic series? Let's find out.
The fact that you're calling this "general high-quality" already
exceeded my expectations writing it. I spent a big chunk of writing
it thinking that it was all horrible. I guess that was me ignoring
writer's block when it should have otherwise stopped me. ^_^
In any case, here's a
list of grammar rules you've broken in this chapter:
Grammar Rule #0: Watch out for speling erors and typoes. (Something that need
not be stated, but since everyone's ignoring this very basic rule, what the
hell. But I must note that, yet again, you only had the fewest possible
spelling mistakes in your fic. So whatever you're doing, keep it up in future
chapters. Indeed, this 'using simple, easily readable grammar so that you won't
have too many grammar mistakes' technique has its merits.)
Yeah, I'll be especially careful in future chapters that we release.
We've only gotten like... 1 to 11 out right now. So we'll be more
careful in chapters 12-27 and such.
Grammar Rule #38: Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
*nodnod*
Grammar Rule #fifty-six: Usually, it's better to spell numbers out, but
sometimes that isn't the case. Yeah, I'm nitpicking here.
Gotta nitpick. Otherwise you never get all the dust out of a paragraph.
Grammar Rule #73: Compound-descriptors should be hyphenated, and non compound
descriptors should be separated.
Gotcha.
Four rules broken. Wow. And one of them isn't in the story proper, so it
doesn't really count. So it seems that three grammar rules broken appear to be
your present batting average. I hope it doesn't progressively become worse, but
then again that's what C&C is here for: to keep the quality of the fics checked
if you would so choose to heed my suggestions. Heck, perhaps it was I who made
hasty generalizations on the quality of this fic and it may actually be broken
grammar rules-free all along! We'll see.
We'll see. I did zoom through the writing of this story and I
wouldn't let anyone correct me while I was writing it, so mistakes
were bound to occur. I did decide to go with some of the alternatives
you presented here.
As for the story itself: I like the coherency of NETTG: TIT in contrast to the
sillier NETTG: Classic (though the later, novella chapters were already in that
'coherent' direction; but still, Jadeite doing the Kame Hame Ha just isn't the
type of thing you'd see in a normal, coherent fic IMO)
Aww, c'mon, Jadeite should do the KameHameHa in every serious Sailor
Moon fanfic, shouldn't he? ^_^
. The thing I nag about
the most in any given story C&C is natural progression, believability, and
suspension of disbelief. Well, seeing that you've obviously matured somewhat as
a writer, I like seeing the newer balance this comedy fic has over other
elements such as drama, plot devices, McGuffins, Chekov's Guns, Peripeteia, and
what have you.
I've gotten better with practice. And I still have a long way to go.
I can hammer together a decent story, but I'm no Pratchett or Rowling
yet. I don't live and die by the strength of my sentence structure.
...
Oh wait, I'm currently employed as a tech writer for an engineering
company. I guess I DO live and die by the strength of my writing.
Fortunately, so far, it's been better than the rest of the staff, so I
should probably be able to stay employed for the time being. ^^
The silliness and the relentless use of subtle and overt humor is still
undeniably there, but this time around you're working on a much more stable
foundation. Instead of what seems to be a long-running spamfic, you're now
actually telling a story where humor isn't the end but instead the means to an
end. More than any other fic I've so far read from you, you're now actually
telling a story instead of running a comedy/parody/satirical standup show
disguised as a fic. I daresay that's a good thing, no offense to your other
fics.
Yay! I take that as a deep compliment. The balance of silly and
story is tricky to manage, but it's like salt and sugar; they
compliment one another and urge each other on.
Your other fics: (nukes me)
^_^_^_^
(groans, gets hospitalized, after a few months, gets back to typing this
review) Another point I'd like to bring up is how you've so far handled the
characterization and the goings-on around the non-Atomic Starlight Knight and
Terra Incognita. As I've mentioned earlier, I like how they're actually
experiencing conflict and problems where they can't just snap their fingers and
summon their reality-bending powers to get out of. The fact that ArbyFish _is_
the problem (so far) makes Terra a lot more sympathetic than a lot of those
Mary Sues that she intentionally/unintentionally parodies.
I wrote Terra's characterization with "she deserves no sypathy from
this" in mind. I wasn't trying to make anybody like her. I was
trying to beat her up for being an annoying new character. And that,
in a way, seems to have accomplished the task. She has the
counterbalance she needs for her character to work.
As for S.L.K., it's
nice to see him bungle for a little while before showing his flashes of
brilliance that made him so cool to many a reader way back in NETTG Classic
(the gatling gun was a nice touch).
It shows he's fallable and not a robot.
Oh wait...
Terra and S.L.K.'s yin and yang are quite
balanced, and as such they seem more believable to read despite the underlying
fact that they both, well, came from a world-devouring Overlord that Sailor
Moon and friends should be fighting against.
I am often surprised at how well the galaxy-destroying-monster aspect
worked into the overall story of both fanfics. It had the virtue of
not being that often tried in this manner.
Thing is, I daresay _Arbyfish_ is the _true_ Marty Sue of the fic when it comes
to the stuff he gets away with and the way he screws over Terra time and time
again. He truly puts the 'A' in 'ANC'... Good thing he's funny to boot, or else
he'd be a real detriment to a well-written fic.
Yup, Arby's the one who gets away with anything and nobody stops him.
In Classic, he had limitations and balances to his character. And in
the end, he blew himself up to stop an evil version of Goku, so he's
pushin' up daisies now in Classic.
In TinT... he's a bit more problematic.
(EDIT: Though Bruce the ArbyFish comes a close second in terms of
overpowered-ness)
Yeah, he's overpowered in TinT. In Classic, he's more or less
balanced from what I've been able to write so far.
^^ And that's the best criticism I could come up with for NETTG, Tokyo Drift,
erhm, Terra in Tokyo. Shame on me, I could do better... :P
Aww, c'mon, you could tell me how I'm crushing the dreams of former
NETTG fans! Or how terrible it is that I did "x" or how I did "y."
^_^
With that said, this is indeed one of the better fics in the genre of, er,
uber-powerful inserted characters/avatars/'what-have-you?' that I've seen in
_years_, truth be told. For me, it's certainly more readable than Carrot's
Insertion or Blade and Epsilon's Hybrid Theory or even NETTG Classic (and
they're all well-written, so it's a flattering point of comparison). As such,
can't wait for more. Keep on writing.
Thank you very much! In a way, that's one thing I've wanted to accomplish.
And hey, if this gives any new writers any new ideas, so much the
better. If they liked how one aspect went (I.E. Carrot used the
multiple personality aspect and wrote like 100 chapters of a story),
I'd encourage them to write their own thing. We're all enriched by it
somehow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It is by no means possible for me to write down this science precisely as I
understand it in my heart." (Musashi Miyamoto)
"My direct confession is not to be taken as an admission of guilt!"
-Arby the ArbyFish (NETTG Sprite Comic)
http://nettg.com/spritecomic/index.php?page=178
Thanks a bunch for reviewing this! It's a big encouragement to fix
what I have and get the rest right.
(And while I'm writing, it does help me keep in mind that I need to do
more HoS and such. Thanks for keeping my fanficcing alive! ;)