Finished, part 3
Chapter 12 has now been sent out to the pre-readers.
It took a lot longer than I'd hoped, because the final read-through revealed a whole lot that needed re-working. In particular, the last 5000 words or so! I'm still not 100% happy with them, but they're a great deal improved now.
I suppose it's time to start thinking about chapter 13…
posted by Angus @ 9:34 pm
12 comments
12 Comments:
Yay! Can't wait to read it. Hopefully Sailor Moon will appear in this chapter ^_^
Maaya
Ah, I can wait for Sailor Moon to show up... we know that's inevitable. ^^ I'm more curious about where Sailor Neptune is off to... she's the least special of the missing Senshi. Unless the Neptune powers were *really* badly drained when Crystal Tokyo fell...
-Amado
I think Angus said once (somewhere) that it wasn't the power of Neptune as a whole (that comes from the planet, right?) but just Michiru's power as Neptune that she burnt out.
There are a few things I'm curious about, mainly- why Makoto? This will probably be a better thing to ask when it's all over and done with, but I am curious as to why she (out of all the Inner Senshi, though Minako might be about) was chosen.
-lynz
A Sailor Neptune will appear later in the story, but not for a while yet. As for Sailor Moon ... patience. :)
It's interesting to speculate on whether Neptune will have a talisman or not, with the Aqua Mirror broken. Are talismans personal items, produced out of one's soul (or something like that) -- in which case a new Neptune might well have a new talisman -- or are they one-off items? I have to admit I haven't decided yet.
As for why Makoto ... you know, I don't actually remember! From the start I wanted to have a mix of old and new characters, and I just picked her as one of the originals to keep -- along with Artemis, Rei, etc. I'm really not sure why. She isn't my favourite senshi, or my least favourite.
Just one of those things, I guess ...
Hmm..the talisman. I tend to go with the idea that the talisman is for Neptune the Senshi not the person who is the Senshi. I would say this because one, in Milennials that's how the Judge portrays it and it sounded good to me! Also, it takes the three talismans to produce Saturn. I guess they could be in any form but the fact that it does take those three makes me think they're supposed to be stable items. I couldn't imagine a Senshi of Pluto not having the staff as her talisman (though, I think it's actually the red jewel that is the talisman). I don't know..food for thought.
Yeah, Pluto's Talisman is the Garnet Orb, not the Time Staff, which together make the Garnet Rod...
Whether the Deep Aqua Mirror will still be around is an interesting question, though. In the manga, the implication is that the Talismans are associated with the Outer Senshi, but not an inherent part of their existence; for instance, Kaolinite says that the Death Busters must destroy the Talismans before they awaken the true form of the light, which implies their existence as independent objects. Then again, what does she know?
In the anime, everyone thinks that the Talismans could be hidden in any Pure Heart (then again, they don't know much either). Given the similar mechanisms of their storage, it would be reasonable to assume that the Talismans are like the Silver Crystal; but that raises the question of what exactly the Silver Crystal is. The fact that the sword and mirror would apparently stick around after the deaths of Uranus and Neptune (Marine Cathedral episodes) is telling.
So the 2400 Senshi might be down a mirror, I'm afraid. Hopefully the bad luck didn't carry over into Neptune's next life, or she'd have had a very unhappy first seven years. :P
What the question comes down to is why the Talismans summon the Holy Grail (and, in the manga, Saturn); was it sealed away, and the Talismans created in case they ever needed it back, or is that just the way the Sailor Senshi powers happen to relate to each other?
I think I just failed to contribute anything productive to the conversation. Anyway, there's no new Neptune or Pluto, and Suzue has yet to produce or retrieve the Space Sword, so it's all a moot point right now anyway.
Hey, I wonder if the Church of Serenity has a shard that's theoretically from the Deep Aqua Mirror in each of their churches, like the Catholic Church and the True Cross? ;)
I mean, the "4200" Senshi. I know the difference between 2 and 4. Really.
Ooh, interesting idea about the relics. I may have to use that!
Probably not the Aqua Mirror (although who knows?). A shard from the crystal palace, maybe. Matter of fact, there'll be a good chance to explore this in chapter 13.
Come on, everybody knows that the Talismans are based on the Three Sacred Treasures: The Kusanagi Sword, The Mirror of Yata and the Jewel of Yasakani.
As such, I also think that they are linked with the Power of the Planet, and when Michiru broke her Mirror all she did was to release the power inside it, or more likely, broke the seal that prevented her to tap directly into her Star Seed and tranform into her Eternal Form, but as long as the power of the Neptune Sailor Crystal still exists the Mirror will be reformed but possibly in another form.
D'oh! Good point about the imperial treasures. (Though IIRC Setsuna's talisman is a poor match; the "jewel" is actually a necklace of magatama, or comma-shaped jewels -- nothing like the garnet orb.)
Well, of course the Talismans are based on the Imperial Treasures, but that doesn't contribute towards the interpretion of their function inside the series. Since Sailor Moon is based in modern Japan (and no mention is made of them otherwise), presumably the Imperial Treasures, which have completely different backgrounds than the Talismans, are still housed in their respective locations as symbols of the three virtues. (If you wanted to justify their existence in the Sailor Moon cosmology, you could suggest that they were inspired by memories of the Talismans from the collective unconcious (or created by a specific person with memories of the Silver Millenium, like Yumemi from episode 28).
Greatfire... the concept of the Talismans as manifestations of the Outer Senshi powers instead of unique objects associated with them is perfectly valid and plausible. However, I don't see how the existence of the Three Treasures supports that theory... and I believe canonical evidence leans in the other direction.
I love your idea of Neptune's Talisman having the potential to return in a form other than the Deep Aqua Mirror, though... that would be pretty awesome. And Angus, you should pick whatever works best for the story, of course. ^_^
Man, I love geeking out in discussions over arcane points of series interpretation and continuity.
Oh, and Angus; now that I think about it, comparing shards of the Deep Aqua Mirror to the True Cross is a false analogy. A better example would surely be to those relics that are pieces of saints' remains.
Many thanks.
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