Brian Randall wrote:
On 7/26/05, David McMillan <skyefire@skyefire.org> wrote:
Snipped outline. Not sure why it's there, but maybe I'll figure it
out. Your surreal fics are like onions, you know -- always another
layer...
One reason is that some of the segment headings are misleading. The
other is that the final two segments are not listed, so even though it
tells you everything in the outline, that's conveniently ommiting the
final two doors.... But there's a gap between the outline and the:
...oh. Oh, you sneaky so-and-so. Grr.
~Fin
That should make you wonder. ;)
See above. Grr^2.
Have you been hanging out with Eric Hallstrom again?
If I could I would! I've instead been studying necromancy so that
when all the great authors kick the bucket, I'll be able to summon
them back to finish their fanfics.
Ah... you mean "kick the bucket" in the authorial sense, not the RL
sense, right? I hadn't heard anything about EH being *dead*...
What? Who? WHO? Oh, right, this is a BR Surrealfic -- never mind. :)
"All will become clear in the course of time."
Actually, it *did.* Which brings up something I failed to mention
first time 'round -- to wit, you referred to this as "Surreal," but...
it's not, really. At least not in the way, or to the degree, that
that cluster of Love Hina/Ranma fics was. *Those* required footnotes
to really grasp what was going on. This one actually explains
everything before the end, except for what happens to Setsuna. Which
explanation would have been necessarily anticlimactic, anyway.
If your other surreal-fics were the ending scene from "2001," this
was more like "The Usual Suspects."
Urusei Yatsura? Nyarlthotep? An ICBM?
Mystery!
"That ain't it!" he protested, shaking his head. "Look, Ucchan,
you're my friend, and one of my better friends at-" He cut off
suddenly, eyes widening as he gasped, reeling as though physically
struck. "No," he breathed shakily. "Saffron!"
Oh. NOTB.
'NOTB'?
None Of The Above.
Oh, *that's* not good.
One of F Paul Wilson's "Repairman Jack" novels implies that Jack is
being shaped into a Cosmic Weapon by a powerful entity, which mentions
that "a spear has no branches." With ominous overtones for Jack's
girlfriend and her daughter.
It's actually two (or more) seperate series that take place in the
same universe. Though the connections only become apparent pretty
late in either series. I've only read a few of them myself.
And, of course, some weapons craft themselves.
Well, from that standpoint, Ranma's already a weapon. ;)
So much so, that he has to have a license for his own existence. :)
"Heh," he managed, through cracked, dry lips. "That's rich."
Always time for one last wisecrack.
A jovial attitude always helps when denying reality. :)
Of course, when it comes to *this,* Ranma has nothing on Peter Parker
(your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man).
"No 'but's," Setsuna overrode. "What will be, must be. Now, in a
few minutes I will need to fetch back our wayward Guardian."
"Must be" only on your say-so. And you'll forgive me if I find your
credibility less than stellar, right now.
On second thought, I don't care if you forgive me or not. Which
probably makes us eve.
Of course, not all of the reasons for her actions are clear yet....
Oh, yes. This is one of the drawbacks of doing "on the fly" C&C,
rather than reading the whole thing first. But then, you *wanted* the
reader to have this reaction, didn't you? Lead us from the Gate of
Betrayal, down the Road of Manipulation through the Valley of Hatred,
and out through the Vale of Sympathy at the far end.
(...okay, who pushed my "bad poetry" button?)
The woman halted, one foot across a line of rubble leading deeper
into Nerima's ruined heart. "Yes?" she asked, turning around, and
smiling pleasantly at Ami.
Hard to type with clenched fists.
Er. Sorry? ^_^;;
I *really* wanted to slug that smile of Setsuna's face right then.
So bad it was hard to type.
"It was. Oh, but it didn't need to be. You must understand this,
Ami-chan. It was Makoto. This time." She smiled then, though her
eyes didn't show it. "It could have been you."
"This time"...?
I was considering alternative stories focusing on different fiancees.
Ami/Akane was the obvious candidate. Minako/Shampoo would have been
much harder to work, but probably could also be done. Setsuna's
basically saying that the stories are out there, but that this author
probably won't be the one who writes them. :p
So, you're saying that Setsuna was your self-insert author avatar, is
that it? :)
Makoto blinked, and then her eyes opened, light brown and plainly
confused. Rei bit her lip, and asked, "Hey, are ... you okay?"
Wrong eyes. Except, of course...
Yeap. Though, it turns out that Ukyou's eyes are apparently blue in the anime.
Dangit.
Well, that's okay. Blue and green merge to make a more pleasant
combination than green and brown. IMO, at least.
Occupational hazard of living in a time-share skull.
"kiss you". Makes perfect sense in context.
I had a lot of fun with name carnage later. :)
<dry> Yes, I'd noticed. </dry>
I think it's best this way. And honestly, it's hard not to like
someone who fights as well as he does for us.
Making lemonade.
Hmm?
"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I know it's a saying,
and I think it's been turned into a song at least once.
But suddenly, he remembered another time, another woman ... the same,
but not _quite_ the same ... and she said, "Love, I will betray you,
and it pains me. I tell you first, to give you one last chance...."
There was a time when she gave people choices?
Not Setsuna. The 'same' comment was supposed to imply familiarity
with the Princess of Jupiter. Who was, of course, Makoto(and Ukyou)'s
prior incarnation.
Yeah, I got that later.
She was kneeling on the floor and
sobbing into her hands. Whatever she had been cooking was a ruined,
blackened mess, removed from the stove and now in the sink.
...say what? Two master-class chefs in the same... kitchen.... oh.
*Oh.* I see now.
Riiiiight. :)
My sister's a professional chef. She and my mother can now only
coexist in the same kitchen by very carefully delineating who's doing
what...
Why am I suddenly having Full Metal Panic flashbacks?
Ah ... that's about right, I imagine. Over-protective high-powered
warrior watching over a seemingly average schoolgirl who doesn't
really respect normal social conventions.
Saotome and Sagara: the MITHRIL dream team!
Just give Ranma acess to the "I Want It Real Bad!" drive, (or, in our
case, the Silence Glaive)....
...brrr.
The teacher cut off suddenly, as an explosion rocked the school, and
all students went to the windows, seeing nothing more than a shadow
drifting from the remnants of the gates.
SOSUKEEEEEEEE!!!!!
^_^;;
Makyou: "Suddenly I have the *strangest* urge to fold myself a
Really Big Harisen..."
She nodded wordlessly, as they came upon the scene. Minako was
already embattled with a horde of massive, writhing plants, and Ukyou
leapt down to assist her. The Guardian flashed overhead, sporting the
Chinese shirt that Ranma did not wear, and the long braid that Ranma
had cut off. This time, he was dressed in red, and Ukyou watched him
while Makoto began to attack.
"Um, Ukyou? Eyes, *thattaway,* please?"
Nah, she's admiring the view too. :)
"Yeah, but I need to see what I'm shooting at, too!"
If she falls, Ranma will catch her. Right?
Hmph. That's hardly an excuse.
...okay, so it is. Still annoys my Inner Pragmatic Professional.
Bah. Humbug.
"I was adjusting to other things," he said. "I was pretending....
And ignoring things. It's hard to explain. But.... If.... If I'd
be welcome ... if that door was still unlocked when I got back if I
needed someone to talk to.... I'd like that."
....
He just means to talk to.
Really!
Yeah, I know -- that came across clearly. It's just... seeing
someone all soul-naked, as it were, like this, deserves a moment of
silence. Or something.
It was just one very confusing girl instead of two mildly confusing ones.
I propose a new universal law: The Law Of Conservation of Female
Incomprehensibility.
I'm sold on it already. :p
"Female Incromprehensibility cannot be reduced or destroyed, only
moved about."
"The Universal FI Constant increases, at minimum, directly with the
Universal Female Population."
"The Local FI Constant scales directly to the square of the closeness
of the relationship, to the cube of the number of females involved,
and to the tesseract of the involved male's Commonsense Intelligence
Quotient (plus an additional multiplying factor if the male's name is
Ranma, Tenchi, or Keichii).
I'm not sure if Usagi would forgive Setsuna, or it she'd ... well, to
put it politely, have Setsuna be reborn to start a new life.
Admittedly, once she started recovering memories of her former life,
there would be problems, but does she start over with a clean slate,
or does she atone some other way?
That, I'm not sure about.
And neither is Setsuna.
Oh, Usagi would forgive her -- that's just how Usagi is. But that
doesn't mean she'd just give Setsuna a 'get out of guilt free' card.
It just means that any discipline she handed down would be intended
to, in the long term, leave Setsuna better off than she is 'now,' as
opposed to a purely vindictive punishment.
All those Usagi/Messiah parallels turn up for a reason, y'know. :)
[~Fin]
Yow. That was... just yow. I lost count of the number of
bait&switches, whiplashes, and hidden layers. I've got a headache now.
This one's a keeper.
Awesome -- and thank you very much for the comments, you caught quite
a few things I'd managed to miss. :)
Anytime, anytime. Well, anytime that I'm not drowning in RL, that
is, which is unfortunately rare these days....
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