On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Phil wrote:
Vincent Seifert wrote:
A Paradise Built for Two
an El-Hazard fanfiction by Vince Seifert (seifertv@csus.edu)
El-Hazard characters and situations are copyright 1995, 2001 by
AIC / Pioneer LDC, Inc. This work is not intended to infringe
those rights.
This story follows "Caryatid", but is not dependent on it:
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/other.htm#caryatid
I didn't have to wait long. :)
heh. It was a rather feverish weekend. :)
Makoto looked for himself; that certainly appeared to be the
case. The swimmers and sunbathers swam and sunbathed; the food-
stand owners called out their wares; an octopus pot hopped along
farther up the beach, pursued hotly by an angry girl and luke-
warmly by a panda; but no one was near them, and no one was
looking in their direction. "I guess not, but still...."
Heh. I see you couldn't resist the Ranma cameo. :)
I figure Makoto's read the manga or seen the anime. :)
Makoto vanished. An instant later, so did Ifurita, the
beachgoers, the beach, the sea, the sun, and the sky.
Ah, I knew it was too good to be true.
Exactly.
The face was leaking. The water fell on his own face. It
felt good. Then the stench smote his nostrils. "Urgh."
Suggest: 'The water fell on his cheek.' to avoid repetition of 'face'.
OK, that works.
"What the HELL is the MATTER with you? You're laying in
your own filth!" The face receded slightly, and the bed shifted.
"Open the window," Nanami's voice commanded someone else. "Let's
get some fresh air in here."
Suggest: 'You're lying in your own filth.'
I always have trouble with that...
Nanami stared in horror at Makoto's sunken features and
wasted body. There was food and drink nearby, apparently
untouched, and that was certainly consistent with Makoto's
condition. "How could this happen?" she muttered. She glanced
at Rune Venus, slumped in the arms of a couple of her handmaidens
by the door; there wasn't a whole lot of point in chastising the
ruling princess until she recovered from her faint, and maybe not
even then. Her attention was diverted by the other figure on the
bed.
Chastising Princess Rune? Sounds kinda ecchi. :)
Ecchi is in the mind of the reader. :)
Seriously though, what has she actually done to deserve that? It's not
her fault, nor her place to see that Makoto is well taken care of; she's
a ruler of a kingdom after all.
True... but Rune seems to be the type to take seriously the idea that
responsibility goes with authority, and she has a lot of authority.
Also, Nanami is not the most rational person in the world, even if she
pretends to be. :)
"He's DYING!"
Over-reacting a bit, isn't she?
Yes, but Nanami does that when she's overwrought.
"I will see to it that he doesn't go this long without
maintenance again," Ifurita assured her. "You should understand
that I don't want him to die either. If I'd realized he was this
fragile, I'd have warned him. I thought he knew his own
limitations."
Ah, the fateful words of addicts (and their unfortunate dependents).
Right. And, of course, Ifurita isn't used to thinking in terms of
nurturing life...
Nanami gritted her teeth. "You're missing the point! While
he's with you in this dream world, he's not doing anything real!
He's not bettering himself, he's not seeing his friends--"
I have a serious point to raise. When Makoto crafted the false worldfor
Ifurita, he did it while she was falling into the center of the Eye of
God (if I remember correctly). In other words, he did it more or less
in instants. So this mental holidaying might not actually require
1-for-1 time intervals with the real world.
That is possible, yes. However, the assumption I'm making is that the
"memory clips" Makoto crafted (good word) were extracted from his own
memories (where they existed in holographic past-time), "edited", and
transferred quickly (perhaps even instantaneously) to Ifurita so that she
*remembered having experienced them* rather than experiencing them in
real-time (time-shifted, as it were). (They had to be presented as they
were in OAV 7 because of the limitations of anime.) They were a sort of
parting gift, I think.
The next step after that was for them to build memories together, using
input from both of them, so that they remembered having done things
together that they hadn't "really" done together. From there to living in
the dreams in real-time (more or less; I expect that the time-ratio
between reality and fantasy was variable, much as in normal human dreams)
was the real breakthrough, because it's more fun that way.
I considered this for my scenefic, then discarded it as irrelevant for
such a short piece. However, since you're telling a longer story, it
might be something you want to point out, refute, or modify. Perhaps
Makoto learns how to speed things up as a solution: "Dream
Holidays - Experience a lifetime in only one day for 7500 yen!"
Sounds more like Nanami than Makoto, but perhaps that would be one way
out... but the best way, I think, would be for Makoto to learn to balance
reality and fantasy. (I'm sure this is a problem we're all familiar with
in a less-intense way. :)
Say, do we ever find out the names of currencies used in El-Hazard? All I
can recall is a yen note being used as a tissue. :)
Rune Venus stopped and turned, looking very serious.
"Nanami, it's not a question of letting her. No power I command
can prevent her, not even the Eye of God. I really don't see why
you can't grasp that."
Hmm, I'd say Rune Venus is being less than forthcoming about the Eye of
God. After all, it survived the Holy Wars in much better
condition than Ifurita.
I strongly suspect that Ifurita has now assimilated the Eye's operating
principles, even improved on them (she was able to send Makoto & Co. to
El-Hazard, with astonishing temporal and spatial accuracy, without even
her key staff!) and so is no longer threatened by it. But in any case,
they won't *use* the Eye of God against her, save as a last resort: it
causes way too much collateral damage.
"I can." Nanami sighed and slumped. "I just don't want
to."
"Well, I don't think Ifurita is lying; this really was
Makoto's wish, and may continue to be, whatever we think of it.
We can only imagine what it's like... perhaps, if we were offered
the chance, we'd lose ourselves in a dream world too."
Nanami: That's it! That's the solution. We'll get Makoto so busyoffering
dream lives to other people that he won't have time to
escape himself! Just think of the amount of money we'd make.
Like I said... :)
"Lousy." His hand lifted from the water and reached out.
"I want to go back...."
Boy, is he ever addicted.
I'm not sure I wouldn't be, in his place.
Suggest: '... reached out to her.'
I think that's pretty well implied, but OK.
Ifurita sighed. "All right, but just for a little while."
Her hand met his, their fingers interlacing. Just before the
link took her, she fixed her mind on her ultimate goal. "You
will live on within me," she whispered.
So she's storing up false memories of him to replay when he'sgone?
That's kinda... twisted. I like it. :)
No. Much more ambitious than that. Wait until I post the next one;
you'll see. :)
"It's not far from here, actually, but it no longer exists.
It was destroyed in the wars. Fortunately, I got to see it
first...."
Ifurita: Actually, I was the one who destroyed it, but let's notgo
there.
By all means, let's not. :) (I'll admit, I was thinking the same thing
when I wrote it... :)
~~~~~ end A Paradise Built for Two ~~~~~
Good story; much better and more involving than mine. :)
"Caryatid" and "Paradise" are loosely tied together, but not dependent on
each other... and with only a little reinterpretation, they could be
construed as leading up to "Dreams" in continuity, as well as in theme.
None of them necessarily imply or deny any of the others, which I find
quite pleasing.
While I mentioned a piece from Makoto's viewpoint earlier as
possible closure, I'm no longer as certain that it would be as
captivating or interesting as these pieces from other viewpoints.
I don't want closure just yet. :)
Looking forward to more.
Phil.
Another story is in prereading.
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.
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