Chapter Two is up

[Bob Schroeck]

Here.

I'll bet none of you expected that two weeks ago...

As usual, forum members get first looks.  Sometime after Saturday I'll post it to the FFML (along with chapter 1, which I appear never to have sent them).

Enjoy, and watch the divergences build!

[robkelk]

Aargh. How many times did how many people look at this line and not spot this one?

Consequently, I focused on introducing her to forward techniques, starting with a front breakfall I'd learned from a US Marine when I was first joined the Warriors.

Has an extra "was".

Still reading...

EDIT:

Many thanks to my prereaders on this chapter: Christopher Angel, Kathleen Avins, Nathan Baxter, Andrew Carr, Kevin Cody, Shaye Horwitz, Helen Imre, Eric James, Josh Megerman, Berg Oswell, Peggy Schroeck and Amanda Stair-Duran.

*pout*

RE-EDIT:
One last oopsie: The concordance page still says "Latest Update: 10 November 2017"

[Mamorien]

It's actually spelled Shitennou, not Shittenou. Wikipedia has more on both the general concept and BSSM's specific implementation thereof.

[Bob Schroeck]

All fixed. Thank you.

[Labster]

Well done, well done!  Not what I was expecting for Usagi's temper tantrum, but definitely in character for her.  And, wow, we usually don't get a plot swerve as early as Chapter Two.  If this holds up, a certain two people may yet get to eat choco parfait together.

> Shitennou
Huh, looking at the kanji, I would have guessed Shiten'ou, but no, it's definitely Shitennou.  It's the same kanji in Haruka's family name, pronounced slightly differently.  Language is weird.

To avoid spoilers for the first few hours, I'll comment on the concordance instead:

>  Japanese is actually something along the lines of "Seramuun"
Actually it's along the lines of Seiraamuun.  The long vowels actually make a really great looking title card because they transliterate to dashes in katakana: セーラームーン

> Yes, it's in Scotland, and looks like a ruined castle to people who aren't supposed to be there. <grin>
I would have thought Mahora Academy would be the local branch.

[Bad Moon]

Yikes! Would never thought I'd see ol Meatball Head react like that. I can see why you thought that would garner a reaction, Bob.

[DHBirr]

"We will find this Elmer Fudd and kill him, and his student, too."

While I seriously doubt Bob had this pun in mind, it just now hit me that "Elmer Fudd" is training — errrr, twaining — a "Bunny."  Or should that be a "wascally Usagi"?  
"Ehhhh ... what's up, Doug-sensei?"

*****
I'm a very forgiving person ... on Lord Vader's terms.  "Apology accepted, Captain."

[classicdrogn]

Apparently I either missed the first chapter when it dropped or simply forgot it in the mean time, but the only things I really have to say about it is that you definitely have Usagi spot on, Luna sounds pretty good from my limited impression of her, and Ami's one line was all but physically painful to read because that's not how life works, Ami! I notice a couple other spots I could comment, but they've already been covered by others.

Moving on to Ch2... Well, first off it's nice to see Doug's and Usagi's efforts are paying off. I didn't recognize the pair training in the park who let her join them, but I'm not very up on SM lore, let alone all the possible cameo crossover media in recent years. Disguised Ranma and Kasumi (or at least a call-out to them) according to the Concordance, so presumably when/if I get around to reading DSR that will be resolved.

Oh dear, Jadeite, you seem to have pulled the pin on the Doug Grenade. When you do that, the Doug Grenade is not your friend. Though him commenting on other people's arrogance in combat when he very much comes across as being pretty sure he's the baddest mofo in the valley most of the time is kind of a laugh on its own, to be fair to Doug he usually is if he decides to pull out the stops faster than his opponents can knock him down. I mean, he's on the premier world-wide superhero team in his homeline for a reason, and it ain't because he can cook a mean hasenpfeffer.

It's kind of a shame Furau couldn't have been turned and redeemed somehow; actual competent subordinates are a treasure. Of course, given the fanatic loyalty of most if not all youma to that just makes it more important that she was removed.

Since you asked specifically about Usagi's freak-out, her attacking physically would have been OOC in the original material, but with a few weeks of protagonist-speed martial arts training under her belt and the increased confidence from that as well as generally improving her academics it's plausible here, the more so as she only keeps at it for a short time before flip-flopping between that and the frightened teen girl that would have been her default otherwise - she's not that different so soon, after all.

While it could as easily just be the morale boost from his pep talks, it's persistent fanon if not canon-I'm-not-aware-of that Tux-boy actually activates a recovery and/or buff of some sort when he shows up, and even if not the case now with the way he felt and reacted to I'm Alive combined with his thoughts about being useless just before, he might well develop something like that on his own. (Of course, Doug may well arrange some more organized magic study for him as well, in a later chapter or even by the end of this one, but I'm writing this as I go along to try to avoid forgetting things)

Braga is surprisingly competent as well, actually, and Beryl actually cares about her troops? How can this be? A more nuanced portrayal of the Dark Kingdom is rare in the extreme, good on ya'.

[Labster]

Honestly, I only even recognized it as "sailor" because of decades of exposure to the English-saturated versions of Japanese that seemed to be the norm everywhere but my homeworld. And boy, won't that give me trouble if I'm deployed to Beta Team again after I get home!
One of my favorite lines in Zipang is the IJN sailors asking why everyone on the Mirai was speaking Japanese with an English accent.

Luna looked at her tea, then at me. "I think I'm going to need something a lot stronger to drink."
Time to pull out the heavy cream.

she would be the most kick-ass combat-capable princess this side of Xena
Sadly, Eris became the official name of planet Xena.  Actually huh, I just got the strangest crossover idea.

I'm worried that if Luna gets her memory back, it will come along with PTSD.  Doug should realize this, given what he revealed on the surface of the Moon.  I always wondered if it was a blessing that Luna's memory had been swiss-cheesed.

Prince Arisugawa Park
Wait wait wait, I thought Utena was the prince, not Juri?

One thing I like about your writing is that you always assume that investigative journalists exist in a modern setting.  This seems to be missing in a lot of Japanese works -- I'm wondering if there's a cultural assumption that the media can be silenced easily by the powers that be, and the extent to which that's true in Japan.  However, foreign press cannot be silenced so easily.

Braga is surprisingly competent as well, actually, and Beryl actually cares about her troops? How can this be?  A more nuanced portrayal of the Dark Kingdom is rare in the extreme, good on ya'.

In the manga, a large proportion of their opponents are intelligent, named baddies. Imagine, being kept alive millennia in thrall to a malign extraterrestrial, trapped in a cave deep beneath the ice of Hyperborea, slowly going mad from the evil energy afflicting you and all of your companions. There's a lot of room to add nuance to Sailor Moon. Nice touch in this story, that Beryl only cares about Jadeite insofar as he has value to herself.

[DeputyJones]

Bravo! Encore! Starz!... wait a sec...

Ya know, I kind of hope he goes back to the old palace, with or without the Senshi. Give the soldiers, nobles, and subjects there their long overdue burials/pyres somehow. Maybe shortly before the Battle of D-Point.

Anybody know a suitable 'final send-off' song involving the moon somehow?

[LynnInDenver]

Y'know, I can't help but think, even if the Dark Kingdom tries to step this up a notch or five now thinking that there are still War Wizards, how much out of their league they might be anyway unless they do an all out "all in" strike right now. If only because Doug will step up his game by at least that (and probably further!) level of intensity in response.

[robkelk]

Y'know, I can't help but think, even if the Dark Kingdom tries to step this up a notch or five now thinking that there are still War Wizards, how much out of their league they might be anyway unless they do an all out "all in" strike right now. If only because Doug will step up his game by at least that (and probably further!) level of intensity in response.

I just re-read chapter 1, and noticed something that could be Bob putting a pistol on the mantelpiece for just this reason. (No, I won't mention what it is, except to say it was in a conversation.)

[DHBirr]

Braga is surprisingly competent as well, actually, and Beryl actually cares about her troops? How can this be?  A more nuanced portrayal of the Dark Kingdom is rare in the extreme, good on ya'.

Alas, it was not I who wrote that, but classicdrogn.  I don't know enough about the series to comment meaningfully about how characterizations match up (or don't) between that and this.

[Dartz]

Thanks for writting this.

[hazard]

One thing I like about your writing is that you always assume that investigative journalists exist in a modern setting.  This seems to be missing in a lot of Japanese works -- I'm wondering if there's a cultural assumption that the media can be silenced easily by the powers that be, and the extent to which that's true in Japan.  However, foreign press cannot be silenced so easily.

It's more a convenience of the masked hero genre, you see the same in most superhero comics that the heroes' secret identities are not investigated. At least not in front of the readers/viewers.

[Shepherd]

Doug considering helping Luna with her memory issues made me realize that I haven't actually seen a "The Game Everyone Loves to Play" for the song 'Memory' from Cats. It seems oddly appropriate given that it is from Cats and that the lyrics involve losing and regaining memories, and the frequent mention of the moon and night:

Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone
In the lamplight
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember
The time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

Every street lamp
Seems to beat a fatalistic warning
Someone mutters at the street lamp gutters
And soon it will be morning

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin

Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning
A street lamp dies, another night is over
Another day is dawning

Touch me
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with my memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is
Look a new day has begun

[classicdrogn]

Nice pick, Shepard. Probably a touch-only range, due to the last verse, but it's not like it's the kind of thing you'd want to try pulling off in combat anyway, and that also plays into the idea of laying on hands to heal for extra reinforcement of the effect.

[Bob Schroeck]

It's one of the ones I have in mind, yes, as well as "It's All Been Done" by Barenaked Ladies and "Remember" by Josh Groban. Among others.

[Bob Schroeck]

And now a reply to everything else, more or less...

Well done, well done!  Not what I was expecting for Usagi's temper tantrum, but definitely in character for her.  And, wow, we usually don't get a plot swerve as early as Chapter Two.  If this holds up, a certain two people may yet get to eat choco parfait together.

Thanks.  If you think that was a swerve, wait until you see the end of Chapter three.

And as for those certain two people?  I have Plans.  Parfait is the least of them.

> Yes, it's in Scotland, and looks like a ruined castle to people who aren't supposed to be there. <grin>
I would have thought Mahora Academy would be the local branch.

If I had a Negima Step, it probably would have been.  <grin>

Yikes!  Would never thought I'd see ol Meatball Head react like that.  I can see why you thought that would garner a reaction, Bob.

It was a bit of a surprise to me, too.  I knew that after this fight she would be far less impressed with him -- but this came out of left field for me as well as you, and even as I was writing it I had no idea what was going to happen next.  I suppose it should come as no surprise that my months-long block was just before this bit, hung on the point when Doug's motorcycle hit Jadeite.

While I seriously doubt Bob had this pun in mind, it just now hit me that "Elmer Fudd" is training — errrr, twaining — a "Bunny."  Or should that be a "wascally Usagi"?  
"Ehhhh ... what's up, Doug-sensei?"

Heh.  I never even considered that.  Perhaps I'm too close to the subject matter.  (I do have a moment like that queued up in the plot for DW13, though.)

Oh dear, Jadeite, you seem to have pulled the pin on the Doug Grenade. When you do that, the Doug Grenade is not your friend. Though him commenting on other people's arrogance in combat when he very much comes across as being pretty sure he's the baddest mofo in the valley most of the time is kind of a laugh on its own, to be fair to Doug he usually is if he decides to pull out the stops faster than his opponents can knock him down. I mean, he's on the premier world-wide superhero team in his homeline for a reason, and it ain't because he can cook a mean hasenpfeffer.

Doug and Jadeite will have a couple more face-to-face conflicts, and eventually Laughing Boy will realize he's bitten off more than he can chew.  He's already suspecting it as of that last scene, but he's got too much ego and Evil Overlord to admit it yet.

Since you asked specifically about Usagi's freak-out, her attacking physically would have been OOC in the original material, but with a few weeks of protagonist-speed martial arts training under her belt and the increased confidence from that as well as generally improving her academics it's plausible here, the more so as she only keeps at it for a short time before flip-flopping between that and the frightened teen girl that would have been her default otherwise - she's not that different so soon, after all. 

That, fortunately, does seem to be the consensus, that I did give her enough development that this was not completely out of hyperspace.  As it was, thought, there were still very last minute edits -- oddly enough to Tuxboy's part of the mess -- to make it all work right.

While it could as easily just be the morale boost from his pep talks, it's persistent fanon if not canon-I'm-not-aware-of that Tux-boy actually activates a recovery and/or buff of some sort when he shows up,

To be honest I've never seen anything like that in any official source.  It's certainly not the case here.  What's going on is that the bit of Endymion's personality that's deep inside Mamoru's mind is stuck like a ghost in the last few moments of his life, generating this "protect the princess" compulsion (and tapping into just barely enough magic to let him home in on her).  Of course, when he gets there, she's in the middle of a fight and he has nothing in the way of a weapon, so all he can do is cheerlead her in her moments of weakness.  However, DW!Usagi is getting much more capable very quickly, and doesn't need some weirdo in a top hat sticking his nose into a fight to tell her what she already knows.

and even if not the case now with the way he felt and reacted to I'm Alive combined with his thoughts about being useless just before, he might well develop something like that on his own.

Interestingly, in the manga he actually gets what looks like a pretty effective area attack called "Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber" -- which is basically a hailstorm of +5 holy penetrating roses emitted from the inside of his jacket, or something like that.  He just might find himself working up to that here.

(Of course, Doug may well arrange some more organized magic study for him as well, in a later chapter or even by the end of this one, but I'm writing this as I go along to try to avoid forgetting things)

That really depends on how his story arc goes; I have surprisingly little explicitly planned for him outside of something at the end of chapter 3, a bit at the start of chapter 4, and his involvement in the action of the last chapter or chapter-and-a-half.

Oh, and eventually a thaw in his relationship with Usagi that leads to something resembling the canon romance.  

Beryl actually cares about her troops? How can this be? A more nuanced portrayal of the Dark Kingdom is rare in the extreme, good on ya'.

Yeah, don't know how that happened.  In my notes she was supposed to go all Evil Overlord on Jadeite but finally give him a chance to get back in her good graces.  Instead she turns around and is being, like, a good and caring leader, even if it's for selfish reasons.  (And is that a bit of her stalker-crush on Endymion displaced a bit onto Jadeite?  Could be...)

Honestly, I only even recognized it as "sailor" because of decades of exposure to the English-saturated versions of Japanese that seemed to be the norm everywhere but my homeworld. And boy, won't that give me trouble if I'm deployed to Beta Team again after I get home!
One of my favorite lines in Zipang is the IJN sailors asking why everyone on the Mirai was speaking Japanese with an English accent.

It's obviously not come up yet, but Minako will have a very British accent when she speaks English, as well as a few British idioms.  I think she's deliberately chosen to do so, because she certainly wasn't there long enough to acquire it all by osmosis, but regardless it'll make it fun to write her.

Luna looked at her tea, then at me. "I think I'm going to need something a lot stronger to drink."
Time to pull out the heavy cream.

Snerk.

I'm worried that if Luna gets her memory back, it will come along with PTSD.  Doug should realize this, given what he revealed on the surface of the Moon.  I always wondered if it was a blessing that Luna's memory had been swiss-cheesed.

That might well be the answer to why it was deliberately done to her in Crystal -- but whether or not she has PTSD I think depends on how close she was to the fighting.  The usual depiction in the various versions seems to indicate she and Artemis were cloistered in the palace with Serenity, and not anywhere near the front lines, at least not until the last minutes, when the front lines came to them.  (I also have yet to figure out why Serenity was cloistered in her palace when she was as powerful a sorceress as she was.  What was she doing that was more important than personally blowing away battalions of youma?)

One thing I like about your writing is that you always assume that investigative journalists exist in a modern setting.  This seems to be missing in a lot of Japanese works -- I'm wondering if there's a cultural assumption that the media can be silenced easily by the powers that be, and the extent to which that's true in Japan.  However, foreign press cannot be silenced so easily.

Yoshi's been a part of the plot for, oh, god, more than ten years now?  I wrote the scene where he first meets Doug so long ago that I don't remember exactly when I wrote it.  But he only became an investigative journalist to give him a reason to be following the Senshi (and eventually V before them) -- his initial role in the plot was to be a way to get the Senshi out of shadowy urban legend status and into "real people in the news", and his next role was to be an embedded reporter when they went to the Dark Kingdom.  Everything else about him grew out of those two things.

Braga is surprisingly competent as well, actually, and Beryl actually cares about her troops? How can this be?  A more nuanced portrayal of the Dark Kingdom is rare in the extreme, good on ya'.

In the manga, a large proportion of their opponents are intelligent, named baddies. Imagine, being kept alive millennia in thrall to a malign extraterrestrial, trapped in a cave deep beneath the ice of Hyperborea, slowly going mad from the evil energy afflicting you and all of your companions. There's a lot of room to add nuance to Sailor Moon. Nice touch in this story, that Beryl only cares about Jadeite insofar as he has value to herself.

Thanks, I'm glad you caught that.  

Ya know, I kind of hope he goes back to the old palace, with or without the Senshi. Give the soldiers, nobles, and subjects there their long overdue burials/pyres somehow. Maybe shortly before the Battle of D-Point.

Well, now that he's actually been there, he can teleport there and not have to use his one out-of-atmosphere flight song to get there and back.  So it's entirely possible.  And as you've seen in DW8, he has at least one song which creates a teleport gate.

And there's a bit in canon where the Senshi go to the moon and interact with a recording of the Queen (which she made when in between everything else going on in those last fifteen to thirty minutes?); I will be doing a version of that if unexpected plot developments don't obviate it.

Y'know, I can't help but think, even if the Dark Kingdom tries to step this up a notch or five now thinking that there are still War Wizards, how much out of their league they might be anyway unless they do an all out "all in" strike right now. If only because Doug will step up his game by at least that (and probably further!) level of intensity in response.

Some of my prereaders here in the forums will know why I'm chuckling to myself as I read this...

Thanks for writting this.

You're welcome!

[SilverFang01]

Checking my copy of the manga and Sailormoon Crystal, I think that the Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber acts more like an overcharged Hadoken than a hail of +5 blessed roses, but the later sounds more appropriate for the original anime.

Luna is not the only one with PTSD, Minako was showing something like it in some of her first episodes in the anime.

[robkelk]

...
Luna is not the only one with PTSD, Minako was showing something like it in some of her first episodes in the anime.

I already wrote that sidestory... It's already on Bob's website.

[Bob Schroeck]

Mm. I should probably link to that from the DW-S page.

[Labster]

(I also have yet to figure out why Serenity was cloistered in her palace when she was as powerful a sorceress as she was.  What was she doing that was more important than personally blowing away battalions of youma?)

The Doylist perspective is that Serenity is a princess archetype, the symbol of the purity of the empire, and should not be seen doing anything to dirty her hands.  Possibly that was the Watsonian perspective as well, that anything like combat was beneath the Queen's dignity.  There's a historical double standard where kings are expected to lead armies, but female monarchs are supposed to let other people fight for them.

It was certainly the case with Victoria, and probably the case with Zenobia of Palmyra.  While not a monarch, Joan of Arc definitely meets this trope.  And then check out the Wikipedia entry on Tomyris, who led armies and did some questionable stuff with the "quenching" by modern standards -- but look at how the art protrays her as reserved and feminine!  (The entry on Boudica had this, which is probably more relevant to a different step of the Walk: "There is a belief that she was buried between platforms 9 and 10 in King's Cross station in London, England.")

It's possible that by the time the battle came to the Moon, the war was already lost.  Possibly as a result of the above attitude, if it existed.  I mean seriously, it was all a bit like Berlin in April 1945.  It's possible that Serenity was casting the spells to send her descendants into the next age, or to create the spell that sealed Metaria.  She was cloistered so that she could do the work to send a light into the future.  After all, if you use the Ginzuishou without a plan first, who knows what sort of problems you could cause?

Is there any fic out there written that takes place during the Silver Millennium?

[SilverFang01]

FYI: 'Sailor Moon' Is Heading Back To U.S. Theaters

(Edit by Bob: Fixed double http which caused the link to what looked like a very dodgy site.)

[Norgarth]

Checking my copy of the manga and Sailormoon Crystal, I think that the Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber acts more like an overcharged Hadoken than a hail of +5 blessed roses, but the later sounds more appropriate for the original anime.

I recall Tuxboy using it a time or 2 in the old anime, the one that comes to mind is the first big brawl between the Sailors and Dark Moon/Uncanny Sisters in season 2.  Tuxy was using the rose swarms to intercept Rubius' attacks.