Crystal Tokyo Fanon/Canon discussion

[Jon]

Well, I mean don't even bring Setsuna's manipulation into it. She doesn't have to be the goddamn chessmaster all the time.

And don't tell me to write it. I have an idea, I just have no idea how to flesh it out right now.

[Brian]

Well, I mean don't even bring Setsuna's manipulation into it. She doesn't have to be the goddamn chessmaster all the time.

I want to argue that she's supposed to be that, though.

Then again, canon demonstrates that even if she's supposed to, she frequently isn't.

Haha, a fic where Ranma stumbles into the scene and Setsuna's actually pleasantly surprised -- but has no clue who he is.  That would be worth seeing.

[Jon]

Haha, a fic where Ranma stumbles into the scene and Setsuna's actually pleasantly surprised -- but has no clue who he is.  That would be worth seeing.

I'm imagining a Tennant-esque "What."

[Dracos]

Anyhow, commenting on the original spinoff fic:

What was interesting about it:  It took Dystopian Crystal Tokyo WAY off the deep end.  Everything has been flattened into unrecognizagable parodies of human behavior, not even the royalty retain a sense of Identity.  Yadda yadda, things have gone terribly rotten.

What's not: Ranma.  Ryoga.

...I'm kind of a character driven reader.  That's a show-stopper for me.

[Brian]

Anyhow, commenting on the original spinoff fic:

What was  [not interesting]: Ranma.  Ryoga.

...I'm kind of a character driven reader.  That's a show-stopper for me.

Yeah, I think that's the summary with a bullet for why it didn't interest me either.

[Dracos]

Man, I killed the chatter hard :3

[Anastasia]

Though, the 'Ranma is an engine of chaos' thing has been way overdone.  I'm pretty sure we've seen manga heroes go through way weirder than him.

This. This, this, this, this, this! With the exception of one fic, I've never seen this done well. Plus it's been ground to death at least a dozen times over. Urgh.

[thepanda]

How so? The facts we know about it
1) Ruled by Serenity
2) Kicked out a bunch of terrorists
3) Was attacked by descendants of said terrorists
4) May have been founded before the senshi made it back to Earth

I could have sworn the whole "purification" thing was merely an exaggeration, not something invented wholesale, but I can't be arsed to look it up while I'm at work; I'll take a look later.

But also the whole "ChibiUsa is a kid for 900 years, we have NO IDEA why"? Highly suspicious.

I need to read that arc again, but if I recall correctly that was a huge extrapolation based off a false premise that was floating around some of the major Sailor Moon fan sites back in the day. That premise being that Pluto is a  chessmaster manipulating the timeline to produce Crystal Tokyo, something completely unsubstantiated in the manga. Its like people forget the whole 'Even knowing of my existance is a death sentence. Now die' bit she pulled when we're first introduced to her. They also forget that the gate facilitates a single path through time. Anyone with the power to reach the same plane and the know-how to travel around in it could time travel without the gate, which Chaos, its imperfect incarnations, and the Black Moon family all did at some point. Pluto sure as hell wasn't omniscient.

A lot of Sailor Moon fanon came from those sites. Remember when one site had people believing Haruka was really a man? And then when that got debunked it turned into 'was a man in the Silver Millennium'? Or how no one ever remembers that Tux-boy had an actual effective one-hit-kill attack? Ok, admittedly everyone had one hit kill attacks in the manga, but still. I maintain that 'Tuxedo the Smoking Bomber' is an awesome name for an attack that could only be more awesome if he, in fact, bombed at midnight.

The Chibi-Usa age thing... yeah, I got nothin'. They suggest it might have something to do with her being a child of the Silver Millennium born into Crystal Tokyo, but nothing concrete. We do know she does eventually start aging, though.

And the Sailor Moon timeline is screwy. Why doesn't anyone ever comment on that?

[Jon]

And the Sailor Moon timeline is screwy. Why doesn't anyone ever comment on that?

Well, I have half an outline for a story that explains that neatly as "the universe is completely falling apart". Unfortunately, it's mostly the last half of the outline.

[thepanda]

Though, the 'Ranma is an engine of chaos' thing has been way overdone.  I'm pretty sure we've seen manga heroes go through way weirder than him.

This. This, this, this, this, this! With the exception of one fic, I've never seen this done well. Plus it's been ground to death at least a dozen times over. Urgh.

Ranma isn't a weirdness magnet; he's a main character in a Rumic World story. Weird Shit Happens (to the point of becoming mundane). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inJnkSqNpAY This is average, every day stuff for these people.

[Merc]

Man, crystal tokyo threads, always popular thing to complain about.

On the Chibi-Usa thing, her being 900 year old and still a kid isn't explained...but helps highlight just how stupid the fanon of Crystal Tokyo's purification is. The kid was bullied very, very badly because she didn't have a moon mark visible (never showed until she started time traveling), her whole not growing up situation, being a crybaby, not being refined, etc. Hell, being bullied was what -led- to the whole mess between her and the future silver crystal and why she was such easy pickings for Wiseman.

I find it hard to believe that if purification happened on the scale fanon tends to say, that any kid (let alone the supposed princess) would get bullied to that point.

[Anastasia]

Man, crystal tokyo threads, always popular thing to complain about.

On the Chibi-Usa thing, her being 900 year old and still a kid isn't explained...but helps highlight just how stupid the fanon of Crystal Tokyo's purification is. The kid was bullied very, very badly because she didn't have a moon mark visible (never showed until she started time traveling), her whole not growing up situation, being a crybaby, not being refined, etc. Hell, being bullied was what -led- to the whole mess between her and the future silver crystal and why she was such easy pickings for Wiseman.

I find it hard to believe that if purification happened on the scale fanon tends to say, that any kid (let alone the supposed princess) would get bullied to that point.

But Setsuna is the evil mastermind bitch! She'd set it up so that people had to bully her, so the timeline is intact!

[thepanda]

Gah, too tired to look through the whole arc, but did they even say people got purified? I know people got longevity (average life span = 1000 years, stop aging after they mature) after Usagi became queen of Crystal Tokyo but I don't exactly recall what the purification was supposed to be about. I keep thinking 'anime only'.

[Jon]

TVTropes confirms anime-only, and says it's basically comparable to an exorcism. About what I expected, but I can see how that could be exaggerated.

[Merc]

Depends on the source. I can't speak for the dub, and Doi's website (a very old SM resource website, that a lot of people that wanted 'authenticity' for their fics used) claims that:

Sometime in the future, the world will undergo a frozen sleep. Neo-Queen Serenity used her power to awaken it, and then created the Utopia known as Crystal Tokyo. However, in order to do this, the people of Earth had to undergo a type of purification by her crystal. There were those who didn't want to be cleansed by the crystal and rebelled. Together, Endymion and Serenity defeated the rebellion. Those who still refused cleansing chose to leave Earth and were never heard from since...that is until the Dark Moon attack.

That said...

My SM DVD subs, for that episode itself have the lines:
"A great calamity befell the Earth that you live on now."
"And the Earth settled into a cold sleep. It slumbered on for a long, long time."
"In time it became the thirtieth century, and with the power of the Silver Crystal and Neo Queen Serenity, Earth was awakened."
"With Neo Queen Serenity as their queen, Earth began to prosper, centered around the future city, Crystal Tokyo."
"But evil beings appeared who wanted to conquer this peaceful world. After fighting numerous intense battles, we suppresed those evil beings."
"However many of them did not want to be cleansed by the Silver Crystal and they journeyed out into space."
"After that, Crystal Tokyo prospered more than ever and the people led peaceful lives...until Nemesis."

Going by -that- instead? Purification was the typical 'turn youma back human' thing, not a worldwide phenomenom.

And as for the manga, the manga only mentions that "But after sending one extremely severe criminal to Nemesis several hundreds of years ago, it was closed off. A forbidden planet."

Nothing about purification.

Edit:
And for completeness' sake, dug up the episode dub (ep 76 as opposed to 83. Oh, SM cuts, how I'd forgotten you), which goes fairly close to the sub:
"The earth was devastated by ecological disaster. The entire planet froze over and all living beings were placed in a state of dormancy."
"They slept until the thirtieth century when Neo Queen Serenity came onto the throne and used thep owers silver crystal to reawaken the planet."
"Earth was prosperous again and Crystal Tokyo was the bustling hub of business and the arts. But unfortunately these prosperous times were not to last."
"Beligerent forces from beyond the universe appeared, intent on conquering Earth. After a lengthy and costly war we repelled them. Some of our enemies accepted cleansing from the silver crystal, but most refused and were banished back to space."
"Crystal Tokyo was once again peaceful...until the Nemesis appeared."