I blame all this silliness on Rumiko Takahashi, whose created worlds
have been mangled and twisted by wannabe writers time and time again;
on Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., whose writings remind me of my own, only much,
much better written (but about as coherent); and Takezo. Damn you and
your prose.
Comments and further discussions are very welcome.
Gratuitous Self: Meta-Meta-What?
Prologue
A few years ago, during a brief encounter with tipsiness, I sat
down at a friend's PC and stared at Microsoft Word 95. I took another
sip of the gin-and-beer-spiked mixture of Sprite and iced tea and
began to write about writing.
The story was about a newbie named Takezo (for lack of a better
name at the time, I 'cleverly' stole the teenage name of Miyamoto
Musashi) who posted his Ranma self-insertion fic (which at the time
was all the rage) on the FFML. To me, it was the height of satire at
the time, and I imagined the looks of irritation on the faces of all
the self-insertion writers on the list.
It was my revenge, I suppose, for the rather tepid response I'd
received for the Urusei Yatsura/Ranma 1/2 fusion I'd written earlier,
a tame fic that placed Mendo Shutaro in Furinkan High School. I
expected to get my name into the spotlight, waiting for the public
flames to come in (since there was no moderator on the list at the
time, thus one could expect one hundred fifty or so messages a day).
No flames came in. Imagine my disappointment.
Instead, I received quite a number of supportive emails, to the
tune of 'Hey, great fic man' or 'I know the answer to question X'.
Fluke, I thought to myself. I fully intended to get the
Nabiki/Ukyo SI boys' goats, so I continued with part two, increasing
the melodrama and creating a sort of rivalry between Takezo and the
aptly-named 'Kojiro Sasaki', the Nabiki cult head priest. The flames
should start rolling in any minute now, I thought.
I got more fan mail.
The Greeks invented a word for that sort of thing.
By this time I'd started to enjoy getting fan mail; I had a
little folder set aside in my mail client just for C&C which was
getting fatter and fatter by the day. I had sort of a rivalry going
with my friend and fellow fanfic writer Scriviner (whom to this day
receives comments about the spelling of his nom de plume), comparing
how much C&C we received for the day.
In fact, I enjoyed the fan mail so much that the satire slowly
got leached out of the story.
Where is it now? Where is the original manuscript? Where is part
eleven? the longtime readers cry.
Nowhere, I reply. The fic has run itself into the ground,
choking on its own bile. It has subtly transformed into the thing it
once used to satire.
So I won't bother to write the rest anymore. At least, not in
story form.
But what happens to Takezo, and Nabiki, and Ukyo, and Kojiro? I
hear the readers ask. Not to worry. Foreseeing this possibility, I
have decided to cut out all the crap (ala Timequake One and Timequake
Two) and simply tell you about what was supposed to happen next.
In fact, for those curious about the original fic, but are too
lazy to get it from my site, or too smart to waste their time trying
to wade through that clunky piece of fiction, I'll serve up the good
stuff here and leave the crap out.
Here we go.
- 1 -
Someone once commented that Gratuitous Self was meta-fanfiction.
After all, it was about a story about a story. A writer writing about
a writer writing.
It was a device, I suppose, to distance myself from the SI
character; a washing of the hands.
So here I was, the Pontius Pilate of the fanfic world, ready to
talk down to the mailing list masses from my high horse, from my
podium on the altar.
I freely admit, and I think it's plain to see from my writing
and my web site, that I am a Nabiki fanboy. Others go Ukyo; not me.
Yes, Ukyo is cute. Yes, Ukyo had that boyish-androgynous-whatsitz
appeal. Yes, feel sorry for poor, poor faithful Ukyo. I knew where all
of that was coming from, and yet I was a Nabiki fanboy.
I don't really know why. Perhaps it was because of her 'cool'
demeanor. Perhaps it was due to her predilection toward money (a woman
after my own heart). Perhaps it was because her character had so much
potential (read: underdeveloped in the canon), just like Lina from
Bubblegum Crisis. Perhaps it was because she was the character who
looked the best in denim cutoffs. I don't know. It just happened. But
I wasn't going to set myself up with her in writing, no. I was already
doing that on the online muck I joined.
So what did I do? Set up a writer who set up himself with Nabiki
in his own writing. Ah, yes. TimeRunner's Sermon on the Mount.
Lookie. I'm a pot calling you black.
At any rate, here I am, writing about writing about a writer
writing about setting himself up with Tendo Nabiki.
That makes this meta-meta-fanfiction, doesn't it?
Whatever.
- 2 -
At any rate, this Takezo person decided to write himself in as
the character in the background who appears from out of apparent
obscurity to save Nabiki from imminent doom. Yes. He leaps out from
the crowd, saves the damsel in distress from falling to her death, and
leaves, giving her only a name; Takezo. Musashi Takezo.
Isn't that always the case?
Some powerful character comes out of nowhere, mops the floor
with the regular cast, including (especially) Ranma, and walks into
the sunset hand-in-hand with the girl (or guy, usually Ryoga) of his
or her choice.
Do we all have such unoriginal imaginations? Must we all display
either unheard-of powers or the same powers as the original cast, only
much better? Must the romantic interest always wonder after us after
we've made our dramatic exit? Damn it all, we watch anime, for Pete's
sake! There are other ways!
"Oh, Takezo..." Puh-lease!
I intended to show how a SI was supposed to be written, damn it.
Although I wasn't writing one, mind you, Takezo was. Ha, ha, I made a
funny.
Lately, there has been a rash (a very apt word) of 'avant-garde
cutting-edge' SI fics on the list. How so? Well, they involve the
character being your ordinary Joe getting mopped on the floor by the
original cast (especially Ranma), but STILL walking away (and getting
married sometimes) with the girl/guy of their choice, although after a
lot of quarreling, misunderstanding, and shy courtship.
Wow! So this is it, huh? This is as good as it gets?
I made Takezo walk the middle path; displaying mid-level powers,
bickering with Nabiki, developing a secondary relationship with
another girl, that sort of thing. Not that I was inserting myself,
mind you. I was simply showing people how it was done.
I also have the deed to City Hall with me, if you're interested.
to be continued...
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TimeRunner's Web Page:
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/7482
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All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.
- Kurt Vonnegut