You're not alone. The first time I read Bobbu I was confused as hell and kept wondering who the hell is Bobbu. Than it clicked it was Bob, but it is iritaiting as fuck, especially when you consider the fact that Makoto sounds like an American teenager.

 

I just find it totally unnecessary. We know they're Japanese, we know they struggle to reproduce English words, but the story is written in English, I doubt Bob is the only non Japanese word she has said...

What's the point?

The only odd thing is that I usually don't mind it when authors write Fleur and drop the odd 'h'. I don't know why this bothers me more...

 

The author also decided to make a thread on SB for it.

http://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...lver-warden-dresden-files-sailor-moon.320096/

 

What I've seen so far is that Dresden wants to stop the senshi from doing something he feels they aren't ready for, but the direction of the story seems to point that he'll have no choice but to help them instead of getting help from other wizards. So he'll probably take a role similar to Luna, but more bad ass.

What makes it feel like that to you, I suspect, is that Dresden has only had one encounter with them and it was his initial reaction. Makoto means well, but her daddy complex and Rei's issues made for an eventful encounter.

 

On AO3 the author posted character profiles done in Dresden Files RPG format.

 

Another thing to note is that both Rei and Makoto are right and wrong. If we didn't know how the SM story plays out we would definitely say that the Senshi should have more experienced hands on board, if not leave it to them all together. Dresden's reaction is a mix of being appalled that a bunch of fourteen year old girls, including his daughter, are running around fighting soul eating demons with nothing but a magic shiny with no idea about how it works or the potential costs of using it and his sense of right and wrong. Give him more interactions with the Senshi and the inevitable fumble the white council will pull off and he'll switch to helping them as much as he can rather then hindering them. Makoto doesn't understand this part, but gets that Harry doesn't want them fighting the Dark Kingdom so she argues that point instead.

However Rei is also right that they have been doing a decent job all things considered and shouldn't be looked down on for that. Something Makoto is doing, but I don't think Dresden is. My guess is the Jade Court in this story is going to be the Youma and Harry is gonna tell the council ya nope and help the Senshi nuke them to smithereens. If Rei had been replaced with any of the other Senshi I have a feeling that the situation wouldn't have deteriorated so badly, but Rei does have an issue with fathers and pride.

 

Yeah, that shit's annoying. I can live with it, but it's certainly jarring to keep seeing "Bobbu" when Makoto's supposedly been living in Chicago and speaking English almost exclusively for the last 3(or was it 5?) years, especially since she's young enough that picking up a new language shouldn't be a major hurdle, given her level of immersion in it.

That's not the vibe I'm getting at all. So far, it feels much more like Dresden's pissed off that kids are fighting monsters and that they should be staying back where it's safe while the adults handle things. He hasn't been expressing it terribly well to them, granted, but I very much get the impression that Dresden approves of what they're doing and why, he just doesn't think they, specifically, should be doing it, due to the whole "teenager" thing.

As for Makoto, that's mostly her hero-worship getting in the way. She's blindly repeating what Dresden has said without really understanding his underlying motives and reasons, so she ends up focusing on the wrong parts. She knows her dad wants them to stop, so she says they should stop, but she can't really support that statement, when it comes down to it.

 

Oh is that what Bobbu was? I got that it mean Bob but i had no fucking clue why she was calling Bob that, though it was just a quirk of hers.

 

I think it is. My guess is she discovered him early and now she calls him that simply cause she's always called him that.

 

Yeah, I get why Dresden is doing it. He's doing his Dresden thing, where he doesn't like people apart from himself risking their lives in reckless and dangerous battles. It's certainly not out of character for him to do it either.

As you said, the way he's gone about it is terrible. He's basically diminished their efforts and called them stupid for something which wasn't really their fault (that is, being unaware of the wider magical world that exists).

I really have no problem with those things as long as the story doesn't go down the route many crossovers go down, which would see the Senshi portrayed as weak and useless to Dresden's badassery. Hasn't gone there yet, so could still be good.

I saw the whole Bobbu thing as a nickname she may have started using since she had no problems with Uncle Tom.

 

I read the first one, and honestly, I couldn't stand any of the Dresden stuff. The Harry Dresden parts themselves are ok, in a generic fashion. The author used a bunch of keywords to make us feel at home - typical stuff. The problems are his interactions with everything. Firstoff, I should say, that I hate this version of Murphy. Well, technically, I hate all versions of canon Murphy, but it's a sliding scale, translating roughly from Book 1 Murphy being absolutely detestable, to Book 15 Murphy being mostly just tolerable, since we've come to the conclusion that Butcher won't stop including her, so we're stuck with her and put up with it. This story uses the early Murphy, which is the worst. In that sense, I guess the story is sort of faithful to early canon, but that's not the canon I want to read about.

After that, the opening scene with Susan is a bit groan worthy. The author pretends like its some sort of battle of wills, but when you actually try to read the facts that Harry is trying to disprove or whatever, all the points are very opinion oriented, and nothing that should be eliciting feelings of triumph or however the author described it. It doesn't really flow well.

The crossover stuff is mostly fine. I know nothing of the base material, so as far as reading it, it's pretty much OC stuff to me. Perhaps that's what makes the story semi-interesting, though I'm not really a fan of anime-style stuff like mentioned above, but I knew that thing would appear when I opened the story up. If it was actually a pure DF story with that sort of thing, I probably wouldn't bother with it.

 

Read the first one. I also don't enjoy canon Murphy until book 2 is over(though on a personal note, after book 2, she's one of my preferred characters, so... yeah. #totallynotjimbutcher).

The storyline itself is actually decent and quick feels like a Dresden short. But I echo Anarchy in that the conversation with Susan felt awkward and ... not *forced*, but *informed*. Almost like we were being told something and not shown. I fucking hate that.

The scene with the doctor is better, but not by too much.

Dresden himself seems mostly in character - reckless, protective, snarky - but this was still at a time when his preferred method of dealing with shit was to avoid it if possible, rather than charge in guns a-blazin'. So, he might be, if anything, too mature for this period.

I'm not familiar with SM post-Outer Planet sailors being introduced, so I won't speak to that.

So I guess 3/5, for being readable with some usual ff annoyances.

 

Please, we've all read your Dresden fiction, we know that you're Butcher's evil twin. Or at least his assistant.

I like it, though I do have to admit that I'm not so much looking forward to the plot as I am the fights that I hope involve the Senshi doing their thing and Dresden's quick wit.

It's a solid enough work that I feel it at least deserves a quick read through if you're bored. 3/5 at the moment, with the possibility of increase if the author takes it somewhere nice.

 

Silver Warden got updated with two fight scenes and the fight with Dresden in it proved that this won't be a bashing fic in neither direction - at least in the fight department.

 

I'm so not a fan of magic being portrayed in this way. That fight scene read like a bloody cover based shooter...

 

So, finally decided to check this out and I have to say, I don't like it very much. It is not a bashfic (although I find it amusing that the author had to insist a few times that it wasn't, which should speak volumes on how two particular chapters handled the whole clash of ideologies), but the story itself, its themes, tone and world-building are not very kind towards the Sailor Moon aspect.

The premise here is, an experienced Dresden, who has seen some serious shit, is interacting with the Sailor Scouts when they are mostly inexperienced novices. You could have this very easily turn around, and have the Sailor Scouts, after the series ended stumble upon a sixteen year old Dresden, right after the whole his mentor trying to kill him thing and we could have several scenes of the Scouts lecturing Dresden for being stupid and ignorant as well, that love is powerful magic and that there is inherent goodness in even the most evil person that can be redeemed and he is being an idiot for not knowing that but I am going to guess that would not have flown well with most Dresden fans.

And why would a non Sailor Scout try to fight the forces of evil? That's just stupid, that should be left to those who were born for it, Dresden should just become what he wants, not a fighter. I mean, his powers are quaint, I guess, but hardly true magic in the same sense as the Senshi.

So, there is an imbalance right from the start. Then there is the fact that a lot of magic and themes are polar opposites in Sailor Moon and Dresden. One of the biggest is that in SM, even the most evil can be redeemed, whereas in Dresden, after a certain point, there is no coming back.

As such, you have two magic systems clash where both are right in their own respective systems but find themselves in the wrong when dealing with the other. This translates into awkward reading when you have Dresden and Mako being hypocritical, self-righteous lecturers. Had it not been for Jarik's insistence, I would have stopped reading at chapter 3 or 4. If both sides had this on equal footing, I wouldn't mind, but Dresden and Mako are the ones doing it, which makes this annoying to read, especially since those two are the POV characters.

Back to the themes and tone though. Dresden is very much a shonen for grown ups whereas SM ....isn't. It's targeted at a very different audience and age group and as such, it has certain elements, that, when contrasted, leaves it lacking, especially if you leave it as it is. The whole evil general being a cartoonish saturday morning villain, the Scouts having ridiculous outfits, that Luna is just a cat without any fighting powers, are are taken as they are from the source material without adapting them to the Dresden verse and as such, naturally come across as silly and stupid.

You have a potential clash of ideology and wills between Luna and Dresden but since Luna is a fucking cat, she can't really do anything as Dresden is too stupid to change his mind any time soon and can overpower her easily, which he does. The balance there is completely in favour of Dresden there. Similar to daughter and father fondly dismissing everything the Scouts and Luna say as stupid bullshit, even if they are partially proven wrong on that one.

Yes, the Scouts are still powerful, as are their enemies but the whole context they are portrayed in is rather dismissive and condescending. The whole story has this smug overtone at how ridiculous elements of Sailor Moon are and how silly they seem in direct comparison to the Dresden Files.

Because yes, Dresden is right when he thinks that 14 year old children should not be fighting evil, of course he is. But that's not the point of stories like that. You don't write a Ranma 1/2 crossover where they bring in a social worker to take Ranma away from Genma because Genma is a horribly abusive father, even though that would be correct. The tone of Ranma doesn't allow for that. And to have the story itself conclude that things are better left as they are, how satisfying or enjoyable would that read be?

So, I think I would have liked a fusion more, is what I am trying to say. If the whole Sailor Moon thing had been updated to fit better into the Dresden verse. To have changed the outfits, changed the origin story more, to change Luna, to not have things seem so at odds which each other.

Dresden himself is rather annoying in this, being self-absorbed, hypocritical, dismissive, condescending, arrogant, discourteous and self-righteous to every single person he meets, whether it is the Scouts, Luna, the Tokio Warden or Lash. Him joking realize that doesn't mean a damn thing if he is not changing his behaviour in the slightest.

About the only thing that really interested me, and which is why I have read all the chapters so far, is to see the consequences of a Soul Gaze when it is done with a child. Mako seems to have been deeply influenced by it. I might even go as far to say that she was brainwashed by it and I want to know how much of her is truly left, whether Dresden, being an adult who had seen some messed up stuff, overwrote aspects of Mako's personality, seeing that she, as a child, had not fully developed herself yet.

What would happen if someone Soul Gazed with a baby?


So yeah, not a fan of this story. 3/5 at most.

 

Lol, I checked out of your thesis when you started going on about Dresden's powers being quaint compared to Moon Prism Power.

Go back to winning love by daylight and leave the evil-slaying by moonlight to the big boys.

 

I don't think that's quite what Nermut was getting at. I think he was suggesting it'd be a lot better if Dresden had met a more experienced group of Sailor Senshi, so that the interaction was more on par.

Harry acting like a self-righteous dick isn't one of the highlights of this fic, nor is Mako trying to emulate him with her obvious Harry worship. It borderlines bashing at points. The one thing that makes it bearable is that later on, Harry is portrayed as taking things way too lightly and being a bit hypocritical. It is shrugged off as a minor issue though.

Curbstomp crossover fics are rarely worth more than guilty pleasures really. The best crossovers I've come across are ones that attempt to create some level of balance.

I'm still enjoying it, though. But I completely agree with all of Nemrut's points.

 

Leaving aside the fact that manga Sailor Moon was a massively faster than light destroyer of worlds who could also resurrect the dead on a galactic level, even the vastly weaker anime version still covered a continent in a laser beam and rewrote history like five times.

Harry D. is badass and all, within his own series--but it's important to remember that he's in a relatively realistic modern magic setting, rather than an anime. He once exhausted himself flipping over a car, for instance. That's not bad or anything, but if you're trying to throw him into an anime/manga series--especially one that has reasonably been called the TTGL for girls*--he really has a hard time holding his own. Though I've always thought the manga was vastly superior to the anime, it makes more sense to use it when manga Usagi accidentally hit escape velocity and threw herself into orbit dodging an attack.

Even so, it's pretty hard not to suspect there's some bashing going on, especially when things are handled very much in the vein of White Devil of the Moon, cherry picking things to make the Senshi seem weak. For instance, none of the generals are city leveling nightmares (which is what their manga versions would be, for all that they were made of paper to the Senshi); fair enough. On the other hand, their anime tricks are also nerfed, so you don't have anything like their nightmarish ability to turn entire cities of people into super monsters.

Similarly, while toning down the girls who were shooting city destroying blasts in their first arc is only logical, even their good anime moments are overlooked or sidestepped--to say nothing of the very odd interpretations of their powers. For instance, the fact that it's not originating from a human apparently slows their magic down when this has never been how that worked in the DF--and their power isn't even considered that amazing to compensate.

And despite still being the incarnated souls of planets--which you'd figure would be a big deal in the DF, especially considering ley lines--they're just a little powerful. I mean, you'd figure the living Solar System would at least be as impressive as the powerful Fae.

*Though, agewise, it's more that TTGL is Sailor Moon for boys**.

**Except load of boys watched Sailor Moon, so.

 

I think this setup can work so long as you slowly shuffle Dresden into a mentor and utility power role. He'll end up being Q and M while the gals are Bond