2016-10-01 ff.: Everyone's a Critic
12-14-2023, 02:10 PM (This post was last modified: 02-12-2024, 02:29 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
12-14-2023, 02:10 PM (This post was last modified: 02-12-2024, 02:29 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
Everyone's a Critic
A "ManaChara" Story
by Robert M. Schroeck
with Rob Kelk and Brent Laabs
A "ManaChara" Story
by Robert M. Schroeck
with Rob Kelk and Brent Laabs
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario
October 1, 2016
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"I can't say as I'm too impressed with the casting," Minako said after the disk returned to its main menu. "I mean, their Minako's face is way too thin, and their Usagi's face is too round."
"And they don't look enough alike," Usagi chimed in. "I mean, Mina-chan and I could pass for sisters, right?"
"Right!" Minako chirped. "And what's with the terminal illness thing?"
"It looked like she was running her entire idol career by herself," Ami noted thoughtfully. "Didn't she have a manager, or a publicity team, or even just an agent? Why was she designing her own promotions? And was she writing and arranging all her music? It makes no sense."
Rei pointed out, "Hey, 'singer-songwriter' is a thing."
"Not for idol singers, though," countered Minako.
"Me as a stuffed toy and then a hyperactive tween," Luna grumbled. "That's what makes no sense."
"Hush," Usagi whispered, cuddling her.
"Now Ami came off well," Minako continued.
"I wouldn't say so," Ami objected. "The whole 'Dark Mercury' storyline bothered me quite a bit."
"You have to admit the actress playing you was good, though, right?" Makoto interjected. "And cute, too."
Ami considered this. "I did like her performance, and in that short wig she even looked a little like me." She thought some more, and chewed her lip. "I wonder if I could create an ice sword like she did."
"That would be so cool!" Usagi gushed.
"I'd have to learn how to use it, though," Ami continued.
"You're at the RA Centre at least once a week to swim in their big pool," Usagi answered. "Go to Mamo-chan's fencing club there one of these days and get them to teach you how!"
Minako added, "Or ask Katsuhito-sensei!"
Makoto went on. "Their Rei was a lot bitchier than ours. I mean, Rei's bitchy, but not that bitchy."
"Hey!" Rei cried.
Gulfside Rest,
Pensacola, Florida
October 1, 2016
Well, thought Harley morosely as he shut down the DVD. I should have anticipated that.
His residents had finally expressed an interest in seeing more of their respective shows, and for the last few nights they'd alternated -- two episodes of Evangelion, followed by one episode of Firefly. An hour of each, every night after dinner, on the TV in his apartment.
Damn him for forgetting how volatile Asuka was. She'd been been somewhat subdued since the Evangelion cast's arrival and he'd tentatively chalked that up to the series exaggerating the worse bits of her personality.
Big mistake.
Tonight's viewing had started with episode 9 of Evangelion -- "Both of You, Dance Like You Want to Win!". Other than a persistent grimace on her face (and Shinji seeming to shrink in on himself), the viewing seemed to go well... until the moment that animated!Asuka rolled over on her futon and put herself less than an inch from a sleeping kiss with animated!Shinji.
When the sleeping girl on the screen whispered "Mama" just before Shinji's animated counterpart could work up the courage to close that tiny gap, the redhead in the real world leapt to her feet and exploded. Harley couldn't follow more than a fraction of the furious tirade that followed in an incomprehensible mix of German, Japanese and English -- he was pretty sure he caught "baka", "pervert", "hentai" and "lying" in there somewhere, along with Shinji's name. It didn't end when Asuka marched out of the apartment and back to the one next door she shared with Misato, and after a matched pair of door slams she was still audible through the building's thin walls. A moment later Misato launched out of her seat and took off after her.
Harley glanced around at the rest of his residents. Shinji looked somewhere between horrified and panic-stricken. The remaining Eva adults mostly seemed vaguely resigned, or even bored. Rei, to his surprise, appeared yea-short of rolling her eyes. The folks from the Serenity, on the other hand, were clearly embarrassed except for River. She sat cross-legged on the floor, head tilted, studying the apartment door with narrowed eyes, before reaching over and silently patting Shinji's hand. Then he froze as Inara unexpectedly leaned over to give him a hug.
Nodding almost imperceptibly, Harley turned his attention to the improvised shelving unit -- classic dorm design, cinder blocks and pine boards -- under the TV. The case for End of Evangelion caught his eye as the uncomfortable silence stretched on. I'd best put that in the gun safe, and put a parental lock on it on both Netflix and Prime. If that's how she reacts to an innocent almost-kiss -- and one she already knew about, at that -- god knows what she'll do if she sees the hospital scene.
638 Wasatch Drive
Fremont, California
October 5, 2016
On entering the new universe, everyone in Andy Weir's house had been merged with their local dimensional alternate here in this universe. It was, after all, what the invention was designed to do.
Andy had briefly been female upon arrival to the current universe, but this was primarily because of a flaw in the DIMENSIONAL COLLAPSE-O-MAT's Rule 63 Compensator. He spent a couple of days as a woman before the first test run of Casey's THROWING STAR SHARPEN-O-MAT; a quick round trip though the fires of Muspelheim and he was once again engendered in a man's body.
That man in this universe was also named Andy Weir, which is helpful because Andy would have gotten very confused feeling like he had two different names. He, like the others, had two different sets of memories. The first, memories of being a mad scientist and engineer, and the other a software engineer who became the bestselling author of The Martian. One liked to invent and blow stuff up, the other liked to write about inventions and blowing stuff up. It ended up being altogether much less confusing than he expected.
The one who had been most confused by this state of affairs was the officer of the law known as Quantum Cop. Well, confused isn't quite the right word, since his grasp of the multiple universe interpretation of quantum theory far exceeded that of a normal law enforcement officer. It was simply a perplexing observation: why did he, among all of the residents of Fremont so displaced, have no counterpart in the local universe? Even so, he was a fully empowered law enforcement officer in Alameda County.
"So why do I have a police job in this universe?"
Andy answered with the first thing that popped in his head, "Because you're a cop, duh."
Casey Grimm added, "You have to tell us if you're a cop."
Satan, the dark Queen of the infernal realms and figurehead monarch of Muspelheim, reclined on the royal sofa. "That's how it normally works. But things went wrong so I did some stuff. You're welcome."
Jenn mused, "Did some stuff? Out of the kindness of your heart?"
"Hey! There's no need to be rude!"
Q.C. spoke, "Actually I was more curious about the word 'normally'. How is this normal?"
"You think probabilities only ever diverge? Doesn't that seem improbable?"
"Oh! I see!" Q.C. thought about it for a minute, "So everyone is pretty much the same in this reality as they were in the Alpha universe."
"Well, not quite, honey." Jenn said. "I'm an author in this universe, and so is Andy. He wasn't a mad scientist here, just a weirdo."
"Hey!"
"And I've now got purple hair. Just like in the webcomic!" She smiled as she said it, since the purple hair actually matched her complexion well.
"Webcomic?" Q.C. asked.
"Oh, huh. I guess you're the only one who wouldn't know about it. So, in this timeline, Andy wrote a webcomic about our lives back in the Alpha timeline," Jenn explained. She didn't really think of the other timeline as privileged or first, since she had the memories of both worlds, but she adopted Q.C.'s terminology just to make things simpler. What was it called again, Andy?" she asked rhetorically.
"mmmble nnn nndy," he muttered.
"What?"
"It was called Casey and Andy, all right?"
"So you wrote a story about yourself?" Quantum Cop asked.
"Narcissist," remarked Satan. She meant it a compliment.
"Yeah. It's called self-insert fiction." Andy explained.
Casey implied, "Because Andy is into inserting all sorts of things into himself. From behind."
"Shut up, dude."
"Self-inserting into his butt hole."
"Shut up!"
Jenn squinted in pain, "Ugh, we all got it the first time."
Casey had a realization, "Oh man. That comic is like our lives from the Alpha Universe! You summoned ourselves to us!"
Andy replied, "Yeah, no shit, sherlock."
Satan suggested, "Why don't we take a look at it? It will be like a walk down memory lane?"
"Why?" he asked suspiciously.
"What, the great author doesn't want us to see his old shame?" she teased.
"Hey! It's not that bad! I mean, it's good, okay! It's really good and funny! And you don't need amazing art, okay? That one guy does it with the same pictures of dinosaurs every time, right?"
Jenn piped in, "Actually, it is pretty good. Andy and Casey are a little like Hunter S. Thompson – weird enough to use their own lives as material."
Casey said, "Yeah. That's fair."
Casey began connecting his laptop to the TV so that everyone could read Andy's masterpiece (but obviously not enough of a masterpiece to have actually made him money).
"Seriously? You both died in the first strip?" Mary asked.
"It seemed funny! Although now that I remember, being on the other side of that was less funny," Andy said.
Quantum Cop simply "tsk-tsked" at their lack of nuclear lab safety skills.
"What I'm wondering is how the hell did you make it up to the Pearly Gates?" Jenn asked accusingly.
"Oh, don't worry," Satan spoiled, "That only happens the first time."
Andy realized, "Wait a second, if we're in this universe now, does that mean my deal with you is off?"
"Did you forget the motion picture deal? With Matt Damon?"
"Ohhhh right. Yeah, I'm new to having two sets of memories."
"Wait, what exactly did you do in sophomore year to earn a place in Hell?"
Mary answered, "It's just a comic, Jenn."
Satan giggled from the couch.
Mary clarified, "Some things you're better off not thinking about."
"Oooh, I love Diabolical Cheesecake Day!" Satan purred.
Andy said, "Narcissist."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Don't you have work to do to repair the multiverse?" Quantum Cop asked the Lord of Darkness.
"Eh, I don't wanna do it now. Maybe later."
"Robbing a bank to get noticed? Really Jenn? I didn't think you were so needy," Mary remarked.
"Bite me."
Satan said, "A woman should have more pride. You have to ensnare the man with your feminine wiles."
"Yeah, well, it worked in the end." Jenn squeezed Quantum Cop's hand possessively.
"I can't believe you thought the restraining order would actually work on us," Casey noted.
Jenn sighed deeply. "I liked your Beta Timeline versions better."
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario
October 15, 2016
When the YouTube video came to an end, no one said a word for several minutes.
"What the hell was that supposed to be?" Ami finally erupted. The other Senshi blinked and recoiled at the completely out-of-character profanity.
Minako shook her head. "Just like I said when I hit 'play'. A try at our story made by an outfit called 'Toon Makers'."
"No," Makoto said darkly. "Just... no."
"I'd like one of those sailboards, though," Usagi murmured in a tiny voice.
"Now this one I like!" Usagi declared around a mouthful of popcorn.
Rei snorted. "You're just saying that because it makes you look like a supermodel."
"It makes all of us look like supermodels," Ami pointed out. "None of us have legs that long."(1)
"But what's up with the Dark Kingdom being like five people and a box of enchanted rocks?" Makoto asked. "Where are all the real youma?"
"And why does it go through everything so fast?" Minako added. "We hardly have time to enjoy it all."
Ben Rose House
Chicago, Illinois
October 19, 2016
Cameron paused the DVD player, then turned and glared at Ferris. "How do you manage such bullshit? I mean, we know people who can do real magic these days, and they couldn't get away with the kind of crap you pull off without thinking about it!"
Ferris smirked. "Well, according to some people on the Internet, I'm a figment of your imagination. So it's actually all your fault." He glanced toward the readers and gave them a wink.
Sloane giggled. "Does that mean I'm really Cameron's girlfriend, then?" she asked with a grin.
"No, you're the unattainable beauty who'll never give him the time of day," Ferris replied with a chuckle.
"Oh." She shot a sympathetic look at Cameron. "Sorry, stranger I pay no attention to." She giggled again.
Cameron snorted. "I was okay with that idea until I didn't end up with Sloane."
"Poor baby," she said, still giggling.
The Masaki Home
Coquitlam, British Columbia
October 22, 2016
When the video ended, Tenchi tried very hard not to look like he was sliding away from Aeka on the chesterfield even as he slid away from Aeka on the chesterfield.
"So, princess..." Ryoko asked with sly grin. "You have a whip? Can I see it?"
Garnett didn't need the familiarity with Aeka she'd gained over the past few weeks to realize the princess was about to erupt. She leapt to her feet. "Tenchi, come help me make more popcorn!"
"Right!" Tenchi hopped up and all but ran into the kitchen behind her.
"And you two!" she yelled, briefly sticking her head back through the door. "Take it outside!"
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey
November 12, 2016
The Sailor Team were visiting Douglass Gardens, looking to deepen the bonds of friendship between the two residences. So of course Hokago Tea Time was giving them a private concert. Until Sawako interrupted. "Enough of the J-Pop, girls. It's time to listen to something we can rock out to," Sawako insisted. "And, in consideration to our guests, we'll start with their show's theme."
"That's not something to rock out to..." Ritsu said before "Luz de Luna" started. Half a minute in, Mio was hiding under the throw pillows.
The Sailor Team were entranced.
"Wow," Usagi said at the end.
"What was the singer's name? Paulo Cuevas?" Minako asked.
"That's right," Makoto replied. "He reminds me of my sempai."
"He's got one sexy singing voice," Minako added.
"We couldn't even understand what he was singing," Rei pointed out.
"Who cares?" Makoto and Minako said.
"Play it again!" Chibiusa insisted.
"Well, I was going to play his cover of 'A Cruel Angel's Thesis'..." Sawako teased, "but I suppose we can replay this one first."
"Sawako-sensei," Ami asked while offering a USB memory dongle, "could I get a copy of your playlist, please?"
The former Dietmeier farm
Lake Wobegon, Minnesota
November 18, 2016
"I wasn't that bad, was I?" Ruby searched the faces of her teammates as the other Remnan displacees looked somewhere -- anywhere -- else. Kris had vanished, the coward.
Yang laid a hand on her shoulder. "Hate to tell you this, sis, but... yeah. That was you all over." She smirked. "If anything, it was a little kind." Just beyond her Blake and Weiss were solemnly nodding in agreement.
Ruby crossed her arms, hmphed, and scowled. "You three are mean."
"What ever happened to those friends of yours, Yang?" Blake then asked with a hint of a smile. "They seemed very important to you but I don't think we've ever met them."
"Yes, Yang, why haven't we?" Weiss added with a sly smile of her own. "Hard to tell with those black silhouettes, but they all looked like strapping young men."
"Oh, hey, look, there's some kind of comedy spin-off series!" Yang said hurriedly.
"Tell me," Kris asked. "Was the food fight really that awesome?"
Yang fell backwards in her seat, laughing. "Oh, god."
"Even more awesome," Nora enthused. "I had to shower for an hour to get everything off! I used up an entire bar of soap!" A grin threatened to split her head in two as she looked around at everyone in the living room. "Wanna have another?"
"No!" Ren and Neptune both declared as Ren clamped a hand over his partner's mouth.
Jaune paused at the screen door. Cold night air flowed around him as he looked out. Pyrrha hadn't gone far and stood, lit from behind by the light by the door and slightly hunched, at the railing of the porch that surrounded most of the old farmhouse. Her hair, unbound by the golden ornament he'd rarely seen her without before they came to Refuge, hung down loosely, hiding her face; she had her arms wrapped around herself so tightly that it stretched the loose knit of her cardigan taut across her shoulders and back. For a moment his eyes drifted down to the smooth curves of her butt in her jeans; then, disgusted with himself, he tore his eyes away. His partner needed help; this was no time to let hormones get the better of him.
(But he still couldn't get the sight of that animated kiss out of his mind, and wondered if, just if...)
He drew a deep breath, steeled himself, and pushed the screen door open. As he stepped out onto the porch the late fall night (the month was called "November" here, Jaune reminded himself, and it was almost over) hit him like a splash of ice water, but he ignored the chill. "Pyrrha?" he said quietly. "Do you... do you want to talk about it?"
To his surprise she spun and launched herself at him, and before he realized it, Jaune had an armful of shaking redhead. He buried his nose in her hair, surprised again how much shorter than him she was without her high-heeled boots. (He shouldn't be -- how many times had he seen her, rolling out of bed or fresh from the shower, in bare feet? But some part of him couldn't seem to forget how on that first day they seemed to be so close in height.)
"I know it won't happen," she whispered into his chest, "that it can't happen anymore now that we're here. But it was horrifying to watch."
"Pyrrha..." he murmured and held her tighter.
"And it was all so futile! All my skills, my semblance... so much for the 'invincible girl'." She hiccupped.
"You don't know it would really play out like that," he said softly.
She made a sound half between a laugh and a sob. "No, Jaune, it would. At least on my side -- as I watched the screen, I was making the same decisions, choosing the same attacks as... as she did. Everything that Pyrrha did... was the absolute best choice she, I could make. I couldn't, can't, see any way to do anything better." She muffled another sob against his chest. "And she... I still died. The first time I was in a fight that really mattered, and I didn't just lose, I died."
Jaune inhaled the floral scent of her hair as he struggled to think of something to say. "But you didn't. You're still here with us. You haven't had to face Cinder, and you won't have to."
Pyrrha shook her head. "No, Jaune... didn't you hear what Kris said about 'karasses'? She's tied to us by destiny. She's out there somewhere, I can feel it. And I'm going to have to face her, sooner or later." She pulled back from him enough to look up into his eyes. "And knowing what I know now, there's no way I'm going to wait until the last minutes of my life for this."
Then she kissed him.
Jaune went blank.
When he came back to his senses what he hoped was just a moment later, Pyrrha was still kissing him, and somehow had gotten her arms up around his neck, holding him in place with the strength that had served her so well in the arena. A beautiful girl was kissing him -- him -- and for a moment he didn't know what to do. Then he realized: his partner needed help; this was the perfect time to let hormones get the better of him.
He began kissing back.
That, he was relieved to discover, had been the right thing to do, judging from Pyrrha's response. Since it had worked, he kept at it -- and so did she. Jaune completely lost himself in a kiss that was most definitely longer and better than the one on the TV. Not the least because there wan't a rocket locker behind him, or a reason to shove him into it.
That was the clearest thought to cross his mind for quite some time... until he heard a loud "Awwwwwww!" in a familiar voice somewhere beyond the redhead in his arms. Reluctantly, they separated and he opened his eyes -- when had he closed them? -- to see a stack of friendly faces peering out of the door at them. Nora had been the one to break their... concentration, Jaune decided, was a good word -- she was laying flat on the floor, head and shoulders through the door as though she had crawled there, with her elbows planted on the porch and her fists propping up her chin.
Just above her was Ruby's red-black hair and silver eyes. "So cute!"
"Finally," Ren, at the top of the stack, said with considerably more emotion in his voice than usual.
Yang forced her way past the others, then stopped, crossed her arms across her chest, and smirked at him. "Not bad, loverboy," she said. "I'll give you a 6 out of 10."
As Pyrrha giggled into his chest, Jaune mock-scowled at his friends. "Ha, ha. Everyone's a critic."
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey
November 19, 2016
"It's a pity Miss Gilman passed away so recently," Emily Reed-Pollifax said, laying the paperback she'd just completed on the end table next to her. "I would so have enjoyed speaking with her."
"Would've asked her about everything after Sicily, myself," her husband Cyrus Reed declared gruffly. In his hand he held an earlier volume in the series named after his wife. "Looks like we got close to this Kadi girl. Concerned that without you there she met a bad end, Em."
"Oh dear, I hope not." But on reflection, the chain of events that led both to and from discovering Kadi hiding in a closet of their Connecticut home in Mrs. Pollifax Pursued seemed inexorable; remove herself from the equation, and she was sure Kadi would have been captured and killed by the men in the Chigi Scap Metal(2) van, and Lazlo might not have survived his would-be sanctuary in Willie's Traveling Show. And how many thousands might have died in Ubangiba or Syria without her there to send events down the paths they took in these books? Mrs. Pollifax didn't like the way her thoughts were turning. There were far too many possible bad ends, most of them for people she'd never even met, that being displaced to Refuge would keep her from stopping.
At least there wasn't and had never been a Ubangiba in Refuge, which meant it hadn't become a dictatorship under Henry Bidwell. (And, she realized sadly, probably also meant there was no Kadi or Sammat, either.) And Syria hadn't plunged into chaos after an assassination of Hafez al-Assad in the mid-1990s. And Iraq here had never even had the weapons of mass destruction whose locations Dib Assen had struggled so to get to Farrell. Being able to look back from nearly twenty-five years into the future, even if it was the future of a different world, gave her some hope that even though she wasn't there to take part, the currents of history would likely still flow in similar courses.
"Thinking hard, Em," Cyrus noted, peering at her. "What about? Not planning on running off into trouble, are you?"
Mrs. Pollifax laughed, although it was a little forced. "Oh, no, Cyrus. Just convincing myself all will be well back home."
"Hm," he grunted. "Probably will be, what with Carstairs and Bishop still there. Got more agents than you to send on missions, after all. Have any number of good people to do the jobs you would've done."
"True," she replied, nodding. "Despite that, I think I'd feel better if they'd been displaced with us. I'd rather them safe here than coping without me in a world in peril."
"Not much we can do about it, Em," he said gently.
"No, I suppose not," she sighed.
"Come, my brother!" Taishi declared in his usual over-the-top manner. "We must set to work immediately!"
Kazuki sighed. "What are you talking about?"
"Did you not see the glorious account of our quest to produce the greatest fan comics ever? Were you not there with us last night as our generous hosts shared the marvelous anime that our efforts deserved?"
"Of course I was -- I was sitting right next to you. Why?"
"Is it not obvious, my brother? We must now tell the story of our arrival in this universe, and our heroic role in saving the multiverse as well! The world, nay, the worlds must know! And the best way, the only way, to tell it is of course as a comic!"
"Ah, geeze."
"Residence 51"
Idaho Springs, Colorado
November 24, 2016
As the credits rolled, David turned away from the wall-mounted screen to look at Rhiannon. The residence manager had corralled him after dinner, sitting him down and making him watch a film called The Avengers on the amazing TV in what she called the "media room". "I don't understand -- that wasn't me, and that wasn't the Hulk."
She shook her head, sending the blue streaks in her blonde hair swaying almost hypnotically. "Well, no... and yes. That was the Hulk as he exists in virtually every timeline that has a Hulk. In some ways, he's the definitive Hulk."
"But..." David objected. "That was nothing like the Hulk. It was huge, and it made those leaps, and yes, the Hulk is monstrously strong, but nothing like what was in that movie. And it could think, and talk. I don't understand," he repeated.
Rhiannon patted his shoulder. "The point I wanted to make, Dr. Banner, is that despite how afraid you are of your other self, it could have been far worse. Your Hulk is an outlier -- a puny, weak runt compared to other Hulks all across the multiverse. You transform more slowly, and detransform far easier and faster -- based on your TV show, you're rarely the Hulk for more than an hour at most, I'd guess. Bruce Banner has been known to stay the Hulk for months at a time." She gazed at him with obvious sympathy. "You're convinced you're some unstoppable destructive monster when on the scale of Hulks you barely even rate. That Hulk," she waved at the TV, where the credits were still rolling, "juggles tanks and destroyed a city. Your Hulk would be be hard-pressed to take out a small apartment building." She sighed, and studied him for a moment. "I guess my point is you don't have to be so... fearful, and you don't have to run. Yeah, even your puny runt Hulk can be dangerous. But this isn't 1978, and we're not limited to earthly technology. If something happens, we can stop and contain your Hulk." Suddenly, she grinned. "And I'm told that the greatest scientific genius in the universe wants to meet you and help you get some control over your green guy. What do you say?"
David gave her a doubtful look. "The greatest scientific genius in the universe?"
"Oh yeah," Rhiannon said with a laugh. "She's in Vancouver. She's the one who made our 'Hulkbuster' equipment. C'mon, what've you got to lose?"
He smiled ruefully. "I suppose anything's better than watching another low-budget TV movie about myself."
Addams Mansion
San Francisco, California
December 11, 2016
Utena pushed back from the keyboard. "Wow."
Anthy looked up. "What is it?"
"I've just been reading this thing online called 'The Symphony of the Sword'," Utena replied with a little shake of the head. "It's... well, it's a little scary, because it's about me. Us."
Anthy tilted her head, and behind her glasses one eyebrow raised. "We were warned about that sort of thing," she said with a slight smile before returning to her book.
"No, no, it's not like that," Utena objected, waving her hands. "God, no. No, this is... well, it's about how I get dropped into a completely new world -- crazy, huh?" she added with a self-mocking little grin. Anthy just smiled and shook her head. "So I'm in this new world, only I'm alone and trying to get back to you. And I meet all these really special people who become my friends, and they all help me find you. And it becomes this great big thing with giant robots and gods and..." She threw up her hands. "But after we get reunited, it doesn't stop there, the story just keeps getting bigger and bigger, until I'm dueling aliens with a light saber and commanding a starship." She shook her head in disbelief. "It's just all so crazy."
"What's so crazy about it?" Anthy asked. "Don't you think you'd be capable of all that?"
Utena opened her mouth to reply, only to say nothing as a contemplative look appeared on her face. "I..." she began after a moment, then stopped again. "That's the weird thing. I think... I think I might be able to do what that Utena does, under the same conditions? But looking at where she ends up, from where I am right now?" She shook herself. "It's more than a little scary. To think I could possibly be a hero on that scale."
Anthy shut her book, laid it aside, and stood. She crossed the room and knelt by Utena's side. "Why is it so hard to believe that you could be as good and noble as others see you?"
Utena looked down at her, eyes wide. "Anthy..."
"You are a prince," Anthy continued. "You are my prince. You are already a hero, and not just to me. These stories should not intimidate you -- all they do is describe a potential you should already know you possess." She stood, only to bend down and take Utena's face between her hands before gently kissing her. "Do not fret over it." She turned to go back to her seat, before looking back over her shoulder. "Besides, how likely is it that you'll end up with a light saber and a starship, even in this world?"
She couldn't help herself; Utena laughed. "I could always ask Washuu-chan to whip up a set for me the next time she has fifteen minutes free."
Anthy smiled. "There, you see? It's not nearly as intimidating now that you can joke about it, is it?"
Laughing softly to herself, Utena shook her head. "No, I guess not." A sly smile appeared on her lips. "Suddenly I want to go to Maine and meet this Gryphon."
"And call him 'Dad'?" Anthy asked as she settled herself back into her seat. "You'll give the poor man a heart attack."
"Mm, I might, at that," Utena mused, then looked up at her. "'Call him Dad'? You've read these stories, too!"
Behind her book, Anthy grinned. "But of course, dear. How else would I know the correct model of starship to request from Washuu-chan?"
Utena stared at her blankly for a moment. "You're kidding, right?" Anthy simply hummed to herself and turned a page. "Anthy, tell me you're kidding."
Anthy just smiled innocently and kept reading.
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud
Montreal, Quebec
January 8, 2017
Konata plunked herself down at the apartment's bistro's table where her fellow displacees were already seated. "Hi everybody! I've been playing some games..."
"Oh, that's new," Kagami interrupted, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
Konata ignored her best friend. "...and I've discovered that there are three different major routes in Fate/stay night."
"Should we care?"
"It's a game that stars our apartment-mates. Of course we should care."
"Oh," Tsukasa said in realization. "Is that why you asked whether there's a Grail War going on the day we arrived in Montreal?"
"Got it in one. Anyway..."
"Er..." Miyuki started while glancing at the people at other tables in the building's bistro, "Should we really be talking about our new friends as if they're fictional characters?"
"Sure, why not? People talk about us that way," Konata pointed out. "It doesn't bother me."
"You're an otaku, though," Kagami pointed out. "Not a normal person."
"We're all isekai characters now! Well, our apartment manager is not an isekai character, but that doesn't matter. We have to know everything about our friends from other worlds, if we're to have any hopes to be genre savvy! It's our duty to watch the anime and play the games that they're in! And to see all of the game endings, too!"
"Right, right. Now ask me if I care."
Konata sighed. "Setting miss party-pooper's comments aside, it looks like there's three different good endings to the Fate game. Shirou-san ends up with either Saber-san, Rin-san, or Sakura-san, depending on which route you play and win."
"Emiya-san has three girlfriends?" Tsukasa asked in dismay.
"What? No, he isn't Tenchi. He has one girlfriend in each route."
"But that girlfriend isn't me..."
Everybody turned to look at Tsukasa. "Is our late bloomer finally in love?" Konata asked with a grin on her face.
Before Tsukasa could answer, everybody at the table felt a wave of menace from a nearby table... that just happened to have Saber, Rin, and Sakura sitting at it.
Tsukasa's sense of self-preservation wrestled her sense of honesty to the mat and kept it pinned. "No, not at all."
At the other table, Rin turned to Saber and Sakura. "They have a point, though. Maybe we should play the game about us."
"They have two points," Saber added. "There are three of us, but there aren't three of Shirou-san."
"Play the game!" Konata said. "Get an idea whether you even want to spend your lives with him."
The three young women looked at each other. "I suppose we could give that a try," Rin said, "if we can borrow it from you."
"Oh, please don't," Sakura whispered.
"Oh-ho!' Konata said. "You've already played the game, haven't you?" Sakura's face went beet-red. "You have!"
Rin turned to her sister. "Does somebody need to suffer horribly for what they have us do on-screen?"
In the same tone of voice that Tsukasa had used earlier, Sakura said, "No, not at all."
Konata simply nodded. The fanservicey outfit that Sakura wore in some of the scenes was rather embarrassing, after all.
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario
January 21, 2017
"Wow, that's a sparkly transformation sequence," Usagi said.
Rei asked, "Would you rather people saw pictures of you naked?"
"Sparkly is good."
"Were you really that close to saving Nephrite, sorry, 'Maxfield Stanton'?" Makoto asked. "Or was that something that was changed in the dub?"
"No," Usagi replied, "we were really that close. If only we'd gotten there sooner, or paid attention to Naru-chan..."
"Molly, in this version," Haruka pointed out.
"That's not important," Ami said. "What's important is that we all failed as Soldiers, or Scouts, of Love and Justice in that case. And we aren't the ones who paid the price for our failure."
"It's too bad I wasn't there to help you out," Makoto said. "But I was about to show up, wasn't I?"
"You were, yes. And you probably could have held off the youma while we saved Naru-san's friend," Rei admitted.
"I admit that I'm not the smartest person in the room – we all know that's Ami – but I'm not that big an idiot!" Usagi complained.
"If it helps," Ami replied, "that isn't you. That's somebody named Serena." She sighed, then continued, "But why did they change my family name from Mizuno to Anderson? Mizuno is a perfectly good name."
"At least you, Rei, Mina, and Hotaru got to keep your names. What kind of name is Lita?" Makoto frowned. "Then again, they made me look almost as bad as Usagi."
"Serena!" Usagi insisted. "Not me!"
"At least you got to keep your sexual orientation," Haruka complained. "They made Michiru and me into cousins."
"And they changed Zoicite into a girl, too," Rei muttered.
Michiru put her hand on Haruka's, to calm her down. "If that was Serena instead of Usagi in the English adaptation, then those two were Michelle and Amara, not us."
"Good point."
Makoto grumbled, "And what kind of name is Amara? And Trista, for that matter?"
"Not mine," Setsuna said quickly before Makoto could go off on a rant.
"At least you got to stay competent," Minako pointed out. "Look at what they did to me."
"Er, Mina-chan... they didn't really change your personality."
"Really? I thought they made me look as bad as you, 'Serena'."
"I'm not her! There's no way I'd forget the Moon Stick at Rei's place!"
"As long as we're complaining about names," Chibiusa said, "what's with 'Teeny-Rini'? I'm not a kid!"
Nobody said anything for a moment.
Finally, Hotaru said, "Well, I thought they did a pretty good job for a translation to a different culture. Let's just take this version of our story as an example of how to be tolerant of other places and other opinions." Then she grinned and added, "Sailor Says!"
Everybody else threw popcorn at her.
Blossom Apartments
Ottawa, Ontario
February 19, 2017
Before they started watching their own anime, Mikoto wondered why Rob had insisted that they all agree to having their secrets revealed to each other. Now she knew. "You lost your memory? And you didn't tell us?"
"I didn't want you or Index to get upset," Touma replied.
"You moron! We could have helped you! At least we could have told you what we mean to you..." Mikoto trailed off.
"At least now I understand why you thought that all those people dying around us was normal," Index said. "Touma. No more secrets from each other."
Ruiko shivered and whispered, "All those people. Dying. Have I said I'm never going back to Academy City?"
"Only after the end of every story arc," Kuroko pointed out.
"It wasn't that bad, Saten-san," Kazari said. "We have friends there."
"We have friends here. I like it here. Nobody is planning on doing something that would kill me. Or any of you."
"Academy City looked pretty safe to me on the whole, all things considered," Mii said. "And it isn't as if the rest of our world was any safer. Look at what happened when Kamijo-san went to the beach."
"An entire neighbourhood in Academy City was destroyed when Kazakiri-san turned into an angel! That could have been us in the wreckage!"
Hyoga looked at her own feet. "Sorry."
"It wasn't your fault, Masaka Mimi reminds you."
"That's right! It wasn't her fault! But whoever was behind it still destroyed an entire neighbourhood because it happened to be where she was!" Ruiko started crying. "I thought that ten thousand of Mikoto's clones being murdered was bad enough, but compared to Kamijo's life, we got the lighter and softer stories... I'm never going back to Academy City. Ever."
"You said that already, Misaka Niiko points out."
"It's worth repeating. I'm never going back to Academy City."
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey
March 12, 2017
"Papa-san?" Nuku Nuku asked softly as she stepped into the room he used as a study. The four of them -- Papa-san, Mama-san, Ryu-chan and herself -- lived in one of the two-floor apartments at Douglass Gardens. She and Ryu-chan had their own rooms on the ground floor, and Mama-san and Papa-san had a big bedroom of their own on the second floor, and the rest of the second floor was set up to be a big library and study the two of them could share when they weren't at work. (Well, except for the fourth bedroom, which was left a bedroom in case they ever had a guest stay overnight.)
"Papa-san?" she repeated, and he finally looked up from the papers and plans spread across the table before him.
For a moment she could see his eyes before his hair swung back down and hid them again. He had a dogeared, but unlit, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. (The apartments weren't no-smoking, but the price of tobacco in New Jersey in 2017 had encouraged him to quit. He couldn't break the habit of actually having a cigarette in his mouth, but he could keep from lighting it if he tried.) "Yes, Nuku Nuku?" he said. "Was there something you wanted?"
Nuku Nuku took a deep breath. "You know how Bob-san and Peggy-san said people have been writing stories about all of us?"
"Yes...?" Papa-san drew the single word out long and carefully. She checked her body-language interpretation routines and realized he looked worried.
"I've been reading some of the stories written about me. Us." She raised her hand, and with it the sheaf of laser-printed papers. She placed it on the table before him, its title and author clearly visible: "Transitions" by Richard Lawson. "There's something in this story that worries me."
Papa-san glanced down at the top page, then looked back at her. "You should be careful about what you're reading. You know that they don't have any connection to reality... it has nothing to do with you."
She shook her head, and realized that he was growing agitated over how serious she was being. "It does, Papa-san." She dropped to her knees and and took his hands. "I want to be the Atsuko from these stories someday, and I need your help to become her." For a moment Papa-san looked puzzled. "But the thing in them that worries me... Papa-san, how long is my brain going to live?"
On Papa-san's face puzzlement gave way to horrified realization as Nuku Nuku went on. "You said I was about a year old when I was shot. That was over a year ago. The Internet says the average lifespan of a cat is fifteen years, although some can live twenty or more. But my brain is doing a lot more than a normal cat's, isn't it? The story uses the word 'overclocked'." She bit her lip. "Is my brain going to burn out, Papa-san?"
Nuku Nuku felt hope bloom in her heart when the horror on Papa-san's face transformed into determination. "I think," he said, "that we need to call Washuu-chan."
Grand Imperial Theatre
Atlanta, Georgia
April 23, 2017
Ange and Charlotte stood side by side at the railing of the balcony that surmounted the white marble portico sheltering the theater's main entrance, looking out at the busy Atlanta downtown surrounding the intersection of Marietta Street and Centennial Olympic Park Drive. Ange had fully adapted to the fashions of this new era in which they had found themselves; Charlotte admired (and slightly envied) the other girl's obvious comfort in her designer jeans, silk blouse and jacket. She had given up the purely cosmetic glasses she'd worn at Queen's Mayfair, as well as the deceptively chirpy personality she'd also worn. Both were unnecessary in 21st Century Atlanta.
She hadn't given up her top hat, though, Charlotte mused with a smile. If anything, it somehow seemed to fit her new wardrobe even better than it did her old.
For her part, though, Charlotte had to admit she couldn't adapt as well as Ange had. She smiled sadly to herself at the irony. Try as she might, she could not find any contemporary fashion which to her eye looked good on her. It was all far too revealing, or too informal. Fortunately, the costuming department of the Theatre was happy to tailor outfits to her taste, but she tried not to impose too greatly on them.
She shook her head. She was woolgathering, distracting herself from the issue at hand. They had stepped out here for added privacy above and beyond that which they had ensured themselves while watching the miraculous device which remained in the room behind them, precisely to discuss what they had seen. She took a deep breath and steeled herself.
"I am no longer sure if we should be grateful to Lord Artemis and Mister Kaji," Ange abruptly said before Charlotte could voice her own, similar, thoughts.
She nodded. "I think I would have been happier not knowing our secret will be revealed the first time the rest of the team watches that... what is the proper term? Videoplay?"
"Programme," Ange replied absently. "Although they were also calling it an 'anime' -- a Japanese word for a Japanese production, though one I suspect Chise would find unfamiliar."
Charlotte sighed. "I fear that the revelation of our true identities will damage our... our friendships with the others. They will see it as a cruel deception, if not an outright betrayal -- Beatrice especially. But I see no way around it." She sighed again, deeper. "What will we do if they demand we return to our original names? It has been so very long since I was Ange that I can't respond to that name for anyone but you. And I have worked so very hard to be worthy of taking your identity, however involuntary it had been." She turned to the other girl, who simply watched her impassively. "I've never apologized for the life you were thrust into. Believe me, please, Ange, that if I had not thought that I would be killed as a spy, I would have explained to someone what had happened in the hopes that you could be rescued." She smiled sadly. "If I had known Grandmother then as well as I know her now, I would have gone to her. But everyone in the palace was terrifying when I was six, and the only thing I could think to do was become you." Charlotte smiled wryly. "Protective coloration, as it were."
"You did, and you did it very well," Ange said. "I don't doubt that you are a better princess than I could have ever been. And it has been just as long and transformative a time for me since I was Charlotte. Even without what fate has subjected us to, the difference between six and sixteen is ... profound. Whether we had switched places or not, who we are today is not who we were then, and in this new world neither our names nor our ranks matter."
"This is true," Charlotte admitted. "We have a chance to truly be ourselves, without the demands of others upon us."
"Perhaps," Ange replied, "perhaps not. I suspect that we were given the disk to watch -- and warned to do so together and in private -- for a reason." She shared a tiny smile with Charlotte. "It has been communicated to me that the residences' Advisory Board has begun forming its own intelligence agency, and that if we -- by which was meant Team White Pigeon -- were willing to join it, we would be welcomed, but we will not be compelled in any way. It is our choice whether to take part."
Charlotte tilted her head in puzzlement. "An intelligence agency? Whatever for?"
Ange turned and looked out at the giant wheel and the gleaming towers of glass and concrete, so unlike the London she knew. "The creatures of Grimm which the Hanagumi have battled here in Atlanta are not the only malevolent displacees there have been. There are others, individuals and groups, organized and not, which have... less than the best intentions, or have allowed themselves to become subordinate to such groups." She glanced back at Charlotte. "To protect from such as them the displacees and this world which gives us a refuge, Lord Artemis and Mr. Kaji are organizing. And would be glad to have us."
Charlotte smiled. "It sounds like a noble goal. And they gave the two of us the... programme as part of recruiting Team White Pigeon?"
Ange nodded, another faint smile growing on her face. "I think to encourage us to see that there ought to be no secrets among the team anymore, to build trust among us and strength thereby."
Charlotte raised an eyebrow. "Even the secrets of the Black Lizard Planet? I am not fooled; you use those stories to hide the worst of your past and present from us."
Ange closed her eyes and did not answer right away. "It is... difficult... to break the protective habit of years. But yes... even this I will share. We must trust them with our secrets even as we have trusted them with our lives in the past, and as we will in the future."
She felt a hand clasp hers on the railing, and opened her eyes to find Charlotte almost nose-to-nose with her. "Then, dearest Ange, let us together show them this... 'anime', confirm the unexpected truths it contains, and bare all to them. And if we are worthy, we will come out of it with closer, better friends than either of us might deserve."
"Yes," Ange replied with a short, curt nod. "And then we all of us, as friends and colleagues, will decide together whether to join Lord Artemis's band of spies."
"Tonight?" the princess asked the spy.
"Tonight."
Aria House
Venice Beach, CA
May 6, 2017
"Aw man, why did Yomi get a penis when I didn't?"
"What the hell are you reading, Tomo?"(3)
1) Naoko Takeuchi disagrees with you there, Ami.
2) No, that's not a typo, except on the part of those who painted the name on the van.
3) BL: And yes, I'm thinking of a specific story. Tomo is kind of the age to mess around on 2ch. I did at that age, on 4chan.
-- Bob
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
