A while ago, during the height of the "FFML Challenges" era, there
was a call put out by Robert Morrison, the Eternal Lost Lurker and my
enemy [1], to write a fic in the style of Blue Seed's "Omakee Theatre".

	It was ignored.

	Since then, however, I have had the chance to actually see Omakee
Theatre, and the idea of telling a story which engaged in a broad bit of
self-parody overcame me.

	What follows is the result.

[1] A long and complicated story in and of itself.
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	"Ohayouuu gozaiiiiimaaaaaasu!" sang Sagakuchi Koume as she walked 
into the office of the Terrestrial Administration Centre, smiling in a way
that would usually have indicated that she had just acquired a weapon of
mass destruction.

	Takeuchi Ryouko and Matsudaira Azusa had been having a breakfast
conversation at Ryouko's desk, and were at a loss to explain her sunny
mood, since she wasn't displaying a new toy.  TAC Director Kunikida was
meeting with Fujimiya Momiji's teachers, in his role as her substitute
parent, while Yaegashi Yoshiki was out sick.  "Well, you certainly seem
in high spirits," noted Azusa.

	"Oh, yeah!" Koume exclaimed as she dropped into her chair, sliding
her legs onto her desk and grinning even wider as she brushed back her
orange hair back.  "I had a *great* date last night!  An incredible time!"

	"Oh really?" Ryouko asked.  "Anyone we know?"

	"Mayyyybee," Koume grinned, leaning her chair back.

	"Come on, tell us who she was," Ryouko prodded.

	Koume's face twisted in shock and her chair fell over backwards.

	A few moments later, her head poked up from the floor.  "NANI?"
she shrieked.  "What do you mean, 'who *she* was'?"

	Ryouko and Azusa blinked simultaneously.  "You mean that you were
out with a man?" Azusa asked.

	"WHY IN THE NAME OF TEZUKA WOULD I BE OUT WITH A *WOMAN*?!"

	"Well ... Koume-san, you *are* almost militantly unfeminine, you
know?" Ryouko began to explain.

	Koume shot up instantly.  "Excuse me?  So now we're stereotyping,
and anyone who doesn't want to run around acting all girly with ribbons in
their hair is a *lesbian*?"

	"Well, of course not!" Azusa interjected, a bit hurt at the
insinuation.  "There was a much more important reason to think that you
were a lesbian."

	"Like *what*?" Koume barked.

	"Well, remember who's directing this omakee, Koume-san."

	Koume paused, and ran to Director Kunikida's locker, flinging it
open.  There, she saw the TAC's collection of Blue Seed tapes.  "Blue Seed
Omakee Theater Volume 23," she muttered, and seized the tape when she
found it.  She popped it in the VCR, and fast forwarded past the opening
sequence, snickering as she always did as the SD-Momiji's panties were
exposed -- but not *too* loudly, as she realized that Ryouko and Azusa
were standing on either side of her.

	She paused the tape as the screen listing the directorial credits
was presented, since she didn't want the short to get any more
self-referential than it already had.  She sounded out the katakana of the
director's name: "Korisu Dabaasu".  Koume paused.  "Who the hell is Korisu
Dabaasu?"

	"Silly, that's the Japanese pronounciation, his real name is Chris
Davies."

	"What the hell is an American --"

	"Canadian," Azusa interrupted.

	"-- doing directing a Blue Seed Omakee?"

	"Makes no sense to me either," Ryouko admitted.  A stray gust of
wind blew up the hair that covered the left side of her face, revealing
that it was covered in scar tissue.

	"Makes *perfect* sense to *me*!" noted Azusa, staring at the ruin
of her colleague's face, aghast.

	Ryouko gave her a dirty look as the wind died down.

	"Well *anyway*, why should the director do dumb things like making
me *gay* or screwing with Ryouko's face?" Koume continued.

	Azusa stared at her with shock written all over her classically
beautiful features.  "Thank you," she muttered, then said aloud, "Don't
you know who Chris Davies *is*?  Didn't you do any research into his
directorial methodology before you came in to do this omakee?  Suppose it
had been one of the serious ones instead of a fluff piece?"

	"I do *not* think something dealing with my sexual identity is
gonna be a fluff piece!" roared Koume.  "And no, no I didn't!"

	"I'll go get the slide projector," offered Ryouko.

	A moment later --

	-- "What the hell kind of scene change was *that*?" --

	-- Ryouko had set up the projector and the screen.  Azusa hit the
lights, and offered to work the projector while Ryouko narrated.  Koume
was still fuming.

	CLICK.  The first slide showed a young caucasian male in his early
twenties, with a short scraggy beard and glasses over half-shut, sleepy
eyes.

	"This," explained Ryouko, "is Chris Davies, a Canadian fanfic
author."

	"Fanfics are dojinshi, right?" Koume inquired.

	"Well, *text* dojinshi --"

	"Who'd want to *read* about anime characters?"

	"Everyone who bought those novels based on Macross, Southern 
Cross, and Mospeada?  Anyway --"

	CLICK.  The picture was a montage of pictures of groups of women
-- the Sailor Senshi, the Gall Force crews, the Knight Sabres, and Doco.

	"Mr. Davies has often chosen as his theme the complex
relationships between women.  There are many reasons for this -- the one
most often cited being his complete inability to write believable male
characters."

	CLICK.  Koume gasped and turned away from the shot.  <ECCCHHHI!>

	"For some reason, though, he often writes these female chara into
relationships with each other -- this shot, by the way, is actually from a
story by Mr. Kristan Overstreet and Mr. Larry Mann, not Mr. Davies."

	CLICK.

	"The best example of this is his frequent invocation of a
relationship, depicted here, which he claims to see hinted at between
Tsukino Usagi and Hino Rei of --"

	"I *know* where they're from," Koume bit out.

	CLICK.

	"However, he has also suggested a relationship between Priss
Asagiri and Sylia Stingray, shown here --"

	CLICK.

	"Ayeka and Ryouko -- uh, the one from `Tenchi Muyo', I mean --"

	"Gee," said Koume with an immense amount of sarcasm, "I would
never be able to tell the difference if you hadn't mentioned that."

	CLICK.

	"And Ranma and Akane."

	"Now wait a minute.  They *have* a relationship but that's *not*
lesbianism!"

	"They're both *girls*!" Ryouko pointed out.

	"He's really a *guy*!" Koume snapped.

	"Can we keep moving?" Azusa inquired.

	CLICK.

	"In addition, he has hinted or joked about doing stories involving 
Natsumi and Miyuki of `Taiho Shichauzo' --"

	"Oh, that's *crazy*!"

	CLICK.

	"Tita and Elysse, from `Plastic Little' --"

	CLICK.

	"Iczer-1 and Nagisa, from ... well, `Iczer-1'"
	
	CLICK.

	"Kiyone and Mihoshi, again from `Tenchi Muyo' --"

	CLICK.

	"Belldandy and Megumi of --"

	"THAT'S *SICK*," Koume exploded.  "How could someone even *think*
of messing with Keiichi and Belldandy's relationship?"

	Dead silence descended as Azusa and Ryouko waited to see what
horrible thing the director would do to Koume for the crime of insulting
his vision.  When it became apparent that nothing was going to happen,
Ryouko spent a few more seconds glowering at the ceiling, and they
proceeded.

	CLICK.

	"These are Maia and Ritsuko of `Neon Genesis Evangelion' --"

	Koume sniffed.  "At least that's *slightly* more believable than
the doujinshi I saw that hooked up Rei and Asuka.  I can just hear it now.
`yesyesyesyesyesyes' --" Her imitation of Rei in the midst of sex was cut
off when Ryouko politely bopped her on the head.

	CLICK.

	Ryouko stared at the screen.  "Ano ... who *are* they?"

	"Well, the one with the immense bosom is Jessica Rabbit ... I
think.  But I have no idea who the one that is ... um, *entertaining* her
with that log is."  Koume peered at the screen.  "She kinda looks like
Kijima Rei, from `Marmalade Boy' ... but with a pony tail.  And that
*trenchcoat* ... I'm kind of at a loss."

	"*You* watched `*Marmalade* *Boy*'?" the other two exclaimed.

	"Do you *mind*?"

	CLICK.

	"Other pairings that he has suggested include Miki and Meiko --"

	"SICK!  I say again, *SICK*!"

	This time she literally did explode.

	After a few harrowing moments of pulling herself together, Koume
gasped out, "That's enough!"

	"But we didn't even get to the one about the hanky panky on the
Starleaf," Azusa said, pouting.

	"Go read Haldeman!" Koume said as she came unsteadily to her feet.
"Look, I'm *not* a lesbian.  I don't know why anyone would *think* I was a
lesbian."

	"Well, apparently he only does this to characters he really
likes," Azusa explained.

	"Oh yeah?  Well I don't care if he likes me or not so --"
Instantly, Koume vanished.

	"Boy, he really exercises a lot of directorial privelege," mused
Ryouko.

	It was very silent in the darkened TAC offices.

	"Oh what the heck," Azusa said, and jumped Ryouko's bones.


Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"Ain't I a stinker?" -- me, now.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html