Aiya.
OK, for the convenience of anyone who's actually following this,
and for my own, I'm sorting these threads out so I can send one
msg to the FFML instead of five...
C>: "Caryatid", the fic itself
ELT>: "E.L. Toh" <dyfltinquisitor@hotmail.com>
VS>: "Vince Seifert" <seifertv@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu>
NB>: "Nathan Baxter" <npbaxter@meer.net>
Ph>: "Phil" <kagami@jeack.com.au>
Th>: "Thermopyle" <Thermopyle@tds.net>
Note: as far as I am concerned, this exchange is sputtering fic
ideas like mad, and anyone is welcome to take any idea I put
forth here and build a story on it. The more the merrier, I say.
ELT> that was a very well-written and enjoyable piece about an
ELT> issue that i'm sure a lot of viewers have wondered about in
ELT> passing but hasn't received much treatment.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. Most of the EH fanfic seems to
assume that Ifurita and Makoto won't have this particular
problem, so I thought I'd bring it up...
VS> and thanks to the writers of El-Hazard fanfic; there aren't enough of you.
VS> :)
ELT> hear hear. esp since Mortal Engines went on hiatus...
Hear that, Alan? :) I wasn't C&Cing Mortal Engines because, at
the time when you were writing and posting it, I hadn't seen El-
Hazard, and hence did not feel qualified. That's been fixed. :)
If you post more ME, I'll undertake to comment on it.
ELT> since Phil brought up the Makoto angle for consideration,
ELT> i was wondering about Shayla's point of view on this issue
ELT> too.
hmm... at the risk of igniting her fans, I thought that after 3
years she would have lost interest in Makoto; her attraction to
him seems less deep than Nanami's.
C> "But, you know, there are other ways...." Nanami looked
C> down, flushing. "I don't know from personal experience myself,
C> of course, but I've heard.... I mean, you have hands, you have
C> breasts, a mouth...."
Ph> Nanami: And Makoto could induce artificial memories through the PowerKey
Ph> Staff. It's not the real thing, but you'd both experience and remember
Ph> it.
VS> Yup, thought of that. Not sure how to fit it into a story, though...
NB> Well, as a point, it could also be used to create new memories in the
NB> present. Simulate a night with Makoto and Human-Ifurita together, over the
NB> duration that it would have taken if it were real- real time, in other
NB> words.
NB>
NB> After all, to (possibly mis) quote a movie of which I'm very fond, REAL is
NB> just electrical impulses interpreted by your brain.
eek. I just had a nasty thought about that... suppose Makoto and
Ifurita dive into an internal world they create for themselves
and lose interest in the real one? Makoto only surfaces long
enough to attend to biological necessities, and spends the rest
of the time linked with Ifurita... not just for sex, but living
full-time in the dream world.
Th> Do you really think that Mokoto would be able to simulate those particular
Th> memories? I can't say for sure (obviously not) but I was under the
Th> impression that a female orgasm doesn't feel quite the same as a male one...
Th> ^_^;
A reasonable question... the issue here is that (as I have
postulated it) Ifurita was a non-sexual being (she doesn't even
HAVE human female sexual responses; that's the other half of the
problem), and Makoto is probably a virgin, so they're starting
from scratch.
Maybe Ifurita would be better served to hire Makoto a courtesan
to, uh, show him the ropes... she can at least learn something
afterwards. :)
NB> Heh. Not like anybody could actually KNOW... yet.
NB>
NB> But it's not unlikely to suppose that Ifurita has a sort of 'road map' of
NB> the female nervous system- and, further, can predict and/or _simulate_ its
NB> reactions to certain... stimuli.
I would say that Ifurita almost certainly has an analogue of a
humanoid nervous system, suitable for controlling a humanoid
body, because we see her do so... and probably more than that,
but I don't know how much more. Ifurita could be an AI core in a
mechanical body, a semibiological construct, or a cyborg built on
a human body (see Ken Wolfe's saga for details of that one); all
we know for sure is that she's got a significant fraction
(perhaps 100%) of "ancient El-Hazard tech", because Makoto can
link with her.
NB> And THAT's how the Machines know what tunafish tastes like. They model the
NB> molecules.
Yes, but do they enjoy it? Thermopyle's got this one, I think:
Th> Actually, going this route presents a problem: why would they
Th> bother to include the ability to feel pleasure? It's certainly
Th> doesn't add anything to what basically amounts to a humanoid
Th> robot designed for killing. It's even likely that they wouldn't
Th> have included the ability to feel pain, because that would give
Th> rise to having self-preservation as a response, since she
Th> certainly wouldn't like pain, and if her master's order's put her
Th> in positions where she's likely to feel it, she's more likely to
Th> disobey her master...
Th>
Th> Of course, this is entirely beyond the point of the fic, so I'll
Th> drop it here. :)
No, in the context of this view of Ifurita, it's very much on
point; I was thinking something like that, but not in that much
detail. It's definitely something I'll have to keep in mind.
Ph> Interesting piece of Nanami/Ifurita interaction which never gets
Ph> developed in the OVAs. Now that the problems of 'interfacing'
Ph> with a Demon God have been portrayed, it needs resolution.
NB> See below.
VS> Yeah, I was afraid of that... it's really a scene, not a story, but I
VS> don't know the rest of it. I figured I'd post it and see what happened...
VS> the last time I did that, things got, um, complicated. :)
NB> *tries to remember*
A Man Among Women. I originally intended it as a one-shot, and
now it has added one very long chunk of backstory, a semi-
spamfic, and four more stories waiting to be written...
Ph> Maybe a short piece from Makoto's viewpoint on how he
Ph> sees this situation.
VS> Thanks for the suggestion.
VS>
VS> How DOES he see the situation? :) (Just kidding.)
NB> Just a thought... Ifurita's body- or any person's, but hers even more than
NB> most -is a machine, breakable, fixable... modifyable. In fact, depending on
NB> the exact extent and limits of her adaption/copy trick, she may not even
NB> need outside assistance.
NB>
NB> But even if she did, it wouldn't be more than a technical problem. And
NB> Makoto's good at those.
O_o
Makoto: Honey, I just finished the Mark 14. It worked OK on the
bench test... ready to install it?
Ifurita: Oh, good, this one keeps... buzzing. It's very
annoying.
Makoto: Buzzing? Well, that's better than the Mark 6...
Ifurita: Don't remind me.
:)
TH> I actually find this rather surprising, that you think she wouldn't be, um,
TH> fully functional.
Actually, I don't necessarily think that. It's not a happy
thought, for one thing; I found the ending of Night 7 to be one
of the most moving romantic scenes in anime, and I'd like Makoto
and Ifurita not to have the problem I've suggested.
I don't always write happy, though.
TH> Obviously pregnancy would be a problem, but I think it
TH> likely that people who would design Ifurita would make it possible to have
TH> sex with her, out of a desire to be able to completely degrade this weapon
TH> of mass destruction, to make THEM feel more powerful about their control
TH> over her(and if that was the case, they wouldn't want her to get any
TH> pleasure out of it).
That's a really deplorable notion, but given the other deplorable
(to put it mildly) things we've been shown about the Holy Wars
period, it fits. Yuck.
TH> Then again, this is only likely under a situation
TH> where she would be designed by a single man, or a group of scientists of
TH> some kind that were creating her for a leader or figurehead of some kind who
TH> specified such an 'option'. If this ancient civilization was more sexually
TH> equal, though, and there were women who helped create the demon goddesses
TH> (unlikely, otherwise there would be male demon-gods, as well), or if the
TH> development of the demon-goddesses was caused by necessity (ie, people
TH> working under lots of pressure to get their own weapon done before the other
TH> guys' arrives and blows them to little bitty bits), then this might not be
TH> the case, and she WOULDN'T be sexually functional.
Well stated; probably the EH writers didn't think it out in that
detail. :) There may be male-form Demon Gods, of course, that we
haven't seen or that no longer exist; Ifurita says she's the most
powerful one, not the only one, if memory serves.
TH> So I guess it depends on what kind of view you have on the way the ancient
TH> civilization works...
Blurry. :)
NB> I consider the second case (a group working for an individual) the most
NB> likely, but this is a 'What If?' story, and we have Demon God Barbie as a
NB> funamental posit of the tale.
NB>
NB> IOW, this isn't what's most likely, but it's possible, so just roll with it.
Bless you, sir. Yes, that's it exactly.
The implications of my postulate are turning out to be
fascinating, though, I must admit.
TH> Regardless, this was a cute story, and rather well written. The only part
TH> that bothered me was this:
C> The door burst open and Makoto dashed in, breathing hard.
C> His eyes darted around the room, apparently expecting carnage,
C> and fastened on Ifurita as she rose from the chair.
C>
C> "I'm fine, Makoto-chan," Nanami said indulgently, waving a
C> hand at him which he didn't see because his attention was fully
C> occupied. "Just go ahead and hug your demon-goddess, don't mind
C> me."
C>
C> Makoto disentangled himself, but not all the way. "Oh,
C> sorry. I was just... uh... there wasn't any trouble, then?"
TH> When, exactly, did Makoto end up holding onto Ifurita? Was it intentionally
TH> left out, as a 'Wow, he's fast!' type of thing, or was it a mistake? At
TH> first I thought I misread this, since the 'fastened on Ifurita as she rose
TH> from the chair' part might have meant he jumped across the room and attached
TH> himself to her, but I reread the sentance, and that's not the case--he's
TH> just looking at her.
That's just the way I write; often I imply objects or events
rather than describing them explicitly, relying on the reader's
imagination to fll in the blanks. Sometimes I make the blanks
too big. :) I'll review this.
TH> Anyway, I have to say that I'd like to see a resolution of this situation...
TH> does Makoto end up with Shayla-Shayla somehow,
Probably not; I think by then Shayla-Shayla would have gotten on
with her life.
TH> or does the lack of a sex life not bother Makoto,
Possibly he would get used to it; it's not an uncommon thing,
really.
It may be relevant to this that the scenes in Makoto's memory are
remarkably chaste (not even kissing), and it can't be to preserve
the rating of the anime, given what else appears in it (i.e.
Ariel's hanky-panky, all of Shayla-Shayla and most of almost
everyone else, etc.)...
TH> or do they somehow figure out how to make Ifurita
TH> more functional?
I think this has been addressed above, both in the real and
virtual senses.
Another possibility is that they find some compromise: some
expedient that Makoto can enjoy without feeling guilty about, and
that is acceptable to Ifurita.
TH> Oh, and BTW, if Ifurita isn't designed to have sex, then are her clothes
TH> supposed to be removable, or are they permanently sewed on? That's
TH> something you could have a bit of fun with, writing the scene that lead to
TH> all this nonsense, and them spending a half-hour trying to figure out how to
TH> get her nekkid so they could have some fun...
What a charming idea. I like it. :) If I expand onto the front
of "Caryatid", I'll certainly try to work that in.
TH> What if her clothes were PART of her? That's a perfectly reasonable thing
TH> to conclude, since if she isn't designed for sex, they wouldn't want her
TH> clothes being destroyed all the time whenever she fights somebody that is
TH> close to her own level. It just wouldn't be at all appealing, a pretty face
TH> above a few blank and completely uninteresting other spots. ^_^;
Heh! Well, they get sort of tattered and frayed towards the end
there, so my guess is that they're optional... but given
Ifurita's former occupation, they would have to either be
extraordinarily durable, have some sort of self-repair mechanism,
or be replaceable. If it comes to that, I expect that Ifurita
herself can mend them, perhaps even in the usual
time-and-material way. Her self-image in Makoto's memories wears
other clothes, but I think that's Makoto's doing.
Thanks, everyone, for all the wonderful comments; I really
appreciate the thought you've put into this.
Vince Seifert Fanfic Analyst FFIRC Frog
Prime: seifertv@csus.edu
Backup: seifertv@myrealbox.com
Techie: http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/
Fanfic: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/
Ideas are worth their weight in gold.
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'