>I remember once I was writing a story in which I planned to kill off a
>major character in a rather... unsavory manner, in order to progress
>to the cliched vengeance quest.
>After I wrote it, I reread it, and immediately spooled down into a
>depressive state. I hadn't realized it was -that- evil until I reread
>it. I scrawled NON-CONTINUITY in BIG ass letters on every page (it was
>handwritten, oh the wonders of technology) and file-13'd it.
>I'm weak that way ^_^ But, I can understand the feeling.

Oh, I know that feeling. It took me something like two full weeks to write the final part I did write to the Chessmen story 'Death in the Cathedral'. I KNEW I was going to kill off Max Bishop. I knew just how it would happen. I could see it in my mind's eye, I'd played the film a dozen times, but for the love of GOD, I couldn't get it on paper. It took my co-author Bill Crawford's eulogy of the character to finally kick me into writing it down.

And then I had people screaming at me as to how the HELL I could do that, what was I THINKING, I blew the entire series up, there was no way out of this. (I'm sure Gryphon knows just what sort of thing I'm talking about.)

Now, back to _CR_.

1) Kei was frighteningly in character in this, in all the ways we've seen her. I think that if Odin Himself had gotten in the way, she'd have tried to go him. "Tho hell should bar the way..." I was in a situation similar to hers once - very unpleasant - and the only thing that kept me from turning the bacterium involved into a buffet for worms was, literally, three people sitting on me until I calmed down just a little bit more.

2) The character interplay was great - Many of these people have known each other for an extremely long time and at this point, they don't even need to react to each other to know what they're thinking. Martin, indeed, I could see pointing out the true stupidity of what Mr. C did and that it was now coming out into the family. And precisely what that meant with her having parents who have things like, oh, a Cosmic Rod... one of the finest swordsmen in the entire UPF AND the most dangerous suit of powered-armor too... or her parents' good friends, any one of whom could reduce him to monomolecular dust or something similar pretty much on a whim. And him 'convincing' him to join the Legion is the kind of thing Martin would do - punishment that would either get him killed or turn him into a better person, AND hide him just in case someone decided, what the hell, he doesn't deserve to live anyway. (Sadistic thought: "Welcome to Klendathu, boys!")

3) The kids have personalities. You can tell the differences between them.

4) Nall... dear god, I was almost afraid we'd find out he's got the middle name Sebastian. He's sarcastic enough...

5) "So You've Just Arrived From A Parallel Dimension". Why do I have the feeling there's copies of that thing, done in various unusual materials, all over the UFP in those just-in-case sorts of places? And of course, who better to write it?

6) Zoner being there when Utena pops up... this is no coincidence. There's something moving behind the scenes here, but we don't have an idea of the shape of it at all. (If it's an eight-headed dragon, tho, I'm hoping to GOD one of you gets a Shermie Spiral. Wait, you'd probably enjoy that. Never mind.)

7) Lesser Mazinga! Whee!

--
Geoff Depew - Mephron
"Big O! Showtime!"