Read Genius 232-233

[petronia]

EDIT -- unlocked this as, uh, people keep asking me to write the D1 "fic", even though it's obviously unwritable. :D;; So instead you can read the blurb!

As I never got around to reading last week's chapter. XD Should've: Tezuka's innit, and not standing around looking like a stern cardboard cutout of himself either. Stasis doesn't suit him. (Part of the metaphoric load of the phrase "straight arrow" is the sense that it must be loosed, and that its purpose lies in flight. The bow matters; the desire of the archer does not. The aim matters; the target after it's been struck does not. What matters most is the parabolic curve of its path through the air. Tezuka has a tragic flaw, alas; his fletching's on a bit crooked, he can't fly as far as he'd be able to otherwise. I think I've pretty much beaten this metaphor to death. XD) As for Sanada vs. Ryouma, I suspect the pacing'll work a lot better in tankoubon. Match point, anyway, and surely Konomi doesn't intend to take this into overtime? =_=

***

Niou and Yagyuu are fanfic authors, see. (For that extra zest of paradox, they can be Prince of Tennis fanfic authors.) Niou writes reams and reams of sort-of-crap fic where there's no style and little betaing, and characterisation is all over the map, but mostly it's a fun brainless read - and there's lots of sex scenes, so the fangirls wub him. He posts three 10000-word chapters at a time to FFN and gets tons of comments. Yagyuu refuses to post to FFN. All his fics are drabbles, and not only does no sex happen in them, but insofar as the fangirls can tell (they surf to his entries from Niou's lj, because Niou's always linking him), nothing happens in them at all. However all the people who leave comments use long words to say they're intelligent and subtle. So the fangirls keep reading his drabbles, vaguely torn between annoyance and hope that they'll eventually understand the symbolism.

But one day! Niou posts to announce dramatically that he's leaving the fandom. When pressed to explain whyyyy he makes the following astonishing revelation: he was only pretending to be a badfic author, in order to see how many fans and comments he'd get. He's fooled you all, and proved conclusively that fandom is T3h St00pid! Confusion reigns in the comment thread. Angst and recriminations abound. Many fans feel betrayed. Some accuse the prank itself of being a prank, born of overreaction to last week's flamewar (Niou gets involved in a lot of these). Random naysayers surf in to say good riddance, and are reflex-flamed by the fangirls. More analytical persons observe that no matter the intent, the fact that he wrote the badfic makes him the author, and that furthermore the Author Is Dead and thus no one should feel cheated for enjoying the fic, since intent doesn't matter. The entire shebang is fandom_wanked nigh-instantaneously. Pointing and laughing occurs. Niou is challenged to actually write a good fanfic, in order to prove that he's only pretending. At this pass Yagyuu (who's ignored the entire matter from the start, as he does with most of Niou's flamewars) chimes in out of the blue, in order to correct the grammar and spelling of one of the most egregious commenters in some detail. Commenter blows up and accuses Yagyuu of being Niou's sockpuppet. Yagyuu is actually Niou's goodfic journal! This triggers a long fanfic_hate-like thread in which people rebel against the pretense, pointing out that Yagyuu's fics shouldn't be considered "good" either, as they contain no action and are basically incomprehensible. At this point events take a turn for the bizarre, as Niou's journal is deleted without warning. Niou then reappears under a different lj name, only to state that he's the real Niou and accuse the original Niou of being Yagyuu's sockpuppet! Mass confusion reigns, and the fandom is never the same again.

Two weeks later many people find themselves using variations on the phrase MY PONYTAIL IZ PASTEDE ON YAY and have no idea where it came from.

...I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I swear that wouldn't go away until I'd written it down.

Comments

[dipping_sauce]

All his fics are drabbles, and not only does no sex happen in them, but insofar as the fangirls can tell (they surf to his entries from Niou's lj, because Niou's always linking him), nothing happens in them at all.

I do that! But I don't have fangirls.

*is sad*

(Um, vot is D1?)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yagyuu doesn't have fangirls either. He just has a really popular lj friend.

(Someone's going to kill me for saying that now.)

D1 (i.e. Yagyuu and Niou) are Prince of Tennis characters. It's... hard to explain. XD;;;

[dipping_sauce]

Then I am Yagyuu! ha ha!

When Tania gets back from Far, Far Away, we're just going to have to have an anime night so you can tell me all about it :)

... When *is* she coming back?

*misses*

[petronia.livejournal.com]

She is back. She called me this afternoon.

[dipping_sauce]

!!!!
!!!!

I'll call her tomorrow, then.

(Tania!)

[tongari.livejournal.com]

why are you sorry? xD it's gold. pure gold. like fandom soap opera... MSTed.. and wanked into the bargain. and I can't believe I'm actually familiar with all these terms. woe.

Two weeks later many people find themselves using variations on the phrase MY PONYTAIL IZ PASTEDE ON YAY and have no idea where it came from.

... brain dead now.

what kind of PoT fanfic would Niou write, anyway? :D

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Niou would write totally insane pairings based on spurious reasoning. Like, he'd slash Oshitari and Tezuka because they both wear glasses, or Dan and Jirou because they're both short. In the OshiTezu fic he would turn Tezuka into a weepy total girl, and Ryouma would get jealous and after twenty chapters he'd cut Oshitari's throat with the jagged tab of a Ponta can, and that would be Niou's version of angst.

Mysteriously, he'd also write it so that it's kind of hot.

[kovaa.livejournal.com]

ahahahaha! oh man, that's what i was thinking of writing - themed threesomes along the lines of tezuka/oshitari/inui with the glasses and jirou/ryoma/kirihara with the sleeping etc. *coughs* not to mention the random acts of gratuitous violence. *coughs some more*

also? i think you kind of really broke my brain. :O

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Clearly you are Niou. Who's Yagyuu then? Tell me so I know who to accuse of sockpuppetry. :D

I think I broke my own brain. :D;;

[two-if-by-sea.livejournal.com]

*IS ANIBE!NIOU'S SOCKPUPPET*

My intelligence iz pastede on yay.

[summertea.livejournal.com]

Well /obviously/ you should write it. Duh.

♥

Two weeks later many people find themselves using variations on the phrase MY PONYTAIL IZ PASTEDE ON YAY and have no idea where it came from.
OMG SABINA MARRY ME. ♥!!!!!!!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

But I did write it, up there. XD;; I mean, there's no way of actually ficcing that, apart from describing what happens. I'm not going to make ljs just so I can make fake wank. XD (Although I did think of writing it in the form of a fake F_W post. It'd be a drabble: 100 words seems to be the average length of a F_W post anyway.)

MY GLASSES R PASTEDE ON TOO OMG!!1!2!!

[sesame-seed.livejournal.com]

FFX is eating my soul at the moment (not to mention killing me with frustration -- whoever designed those minigames deserves to burn in hell forever), but you and D1 and fandom flame wars conjoining in one glorious post => irresistable.

So: I *HEART* YOU AND YOU RAWK LIEK SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT SNOTTY BNF GUY WITH HIS PRETENTIOUS 'OH LOOK AT ME I'M SO SMART' SOCKPUPPET JOURNAL, BWAH.

Can I be your sockpuppet? ♥

[petronia.livejournal.com]

FFX minigames: ha, ha! Clearly you have not seen FFX-2 yet. ._. The actual plotline of that thing is about 20 hours long, everything else is sidequests and minigames. But yes, 'tis a great story.

You can be my sockpuppet if you like, but wouldn't that mean I'd have to do all the work? <333 (And why does that sound vaguely dirty? XD I blame morning_songs and that Hojo Akira doujinshi she linked.)

[nyahnyah.livejournal.com]

XXD That is bloody *brilliant*. It'd work even without Niou as Yagyuu as the characters (or perhaps I say this only because I haven't met them in the series).

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yay, standalone readability! Er. XD

(It sort of runs off their bait-and-switch bit in the manga, I guess. D'you have the manga?)

[nyahnyah.livejournal.com]

Fanfic that's not fanfic!

(No, I don't think I like the series enough to buy twenty+ firsthand volumes. When I go back to Japan-- which will be soon, my pretties, soon! ....Er-- I figure I can find me a manga kissaten and gorge myself on 'em Until then, I'm going on with that I've gathered from fanfic.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Oh. Er, do you want scanlations? Or not to bother? XD

[nyahnyah.livejournal.com]

I, I... once I would have resolutedly said NO! but times change. >D My fear with scanlations now involve where to actually download from that is convinient (as opposed to a chapter here, a chapter there).

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

[INSERT INTELLIGENT COMMENT HERE]

[IS FANGIRL YAY!]

<3 You see, there is a reason I worshipped you from afar in the very beginning, and I'm not really sure when I decided it was a good idea to creep closer, and this comment has completely lost its initial purpose.

YOU SHOULD FIC THIS OMGYES.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Lord, you do realise it's not writeable as an actual story, right? XD;; And I can't write it as if I were going to post it to f_w. The mind rebels.

My memory is that you, Cathy, Sai and Chrissie metaphorically showed up on my doorstep one day, but separately not together. XD

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

0_0

I am rather flabbergasted by this brilliant fic idea. (Why in the world have more crack AU types not thought of making the characters fanfic authors?

The horrible thing is that I am now trying to imagine how the other TeniPuri characters would be in fandom.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

But they do. You mean you've never read a fic in which (scenario 1) character X reads fic about himself and reacts "amusingly", or (scenario 2) character Y writes hawt hawt slashfic about character X? Consider yourself lucky. XD

Kaidou would work tirelessly on something infrastructural, like a fansub BT listing. Ooishi would make text translations, and feel guilty when people write rude emails to him asking him to hurry it up. Kikumaru would have an icon journal.

[eightfold.livejournal.com]

...

...

...

Okay, so I bought Sabu (my Miike, natch), and it kinda sucked. Is that normal? Is he normally less boring?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I dunno! I never saw that one. I googled up a summary just now, and it seems like one of his... calmer... movies. The thing with Miike is that he makes a film every three months or so, and on average they're pretty chaotic, but what you get the impression of after a while is that he sits down before each one and goes, "okay, this one is going to be a hardboiled yakuza drama shot in super-gritty handheld video!" or "okay, this one is going to be a heartwarming oddball comedy with social commentary!" or "okay, this is going to be a total Lynchian mindfuck with giant phalli and lactating women!" (Or, natch, "okay, this is going to be a total cashgrab rip-off of Ring, so for fun we'll make it really obvious by copying shots!" Which is what I hear happened with One Missed Call.) So... it becomes a question of picking and choosing. Personally I've yet to see a Miike film that bored me, but then again I only watch the ones picked out by the insane monkeys who run the Fantasia filmfest, and not even all of those. With that kind of output, I'm more surprised that most of them don't suck.

(I mean, if you really don't want to be bored, watch the mindfuck ones, obviously. XD)

[eightfold.livejournal.com]

Okay. I can buy that. ... it wasn't bad, just... largely plotless. And very gay, but in the most unappealing way humanly possible. The weepy uke best friend really was weepy, and spineless and a total woman, which just killed the sexual tension that was obviously supposed to be there. In fact, there was no sexual tension at all, even with multiple pimps and girls hanging themselves for love and romantic entanglements and stuff.

I'm not commenting on your thing because if I did I'd explode. But know that, in a deep and profound and totally non-sexual way, I love you.

Well, we wouldn't want to make you explode XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Ah. Uh... want recs to very gay Miike flicks in which there is no weepiness, then?

(Gozu, definitely, whenever that comes out on DVD. The main character of that eventually ends up having sex with his yakuza aniki in female form, to simplify the situation immensely. I thought it was hot, though. XD ...And Ichi the Killer, which is also pretty canonically gay, though once again to say that is to simplify the setup. I'd always assumed you'd seen that one, actually.)

Re: Well, we wouldn't want to make you explode XD

[eightfold.livejournal.com]

... dude. Set me up. Mmm, yay gay fics!

Ichi the Killer I have not, in fact, actually seen, although this is not from lack of trying - it's what I was going for when I wound up with Sabu (and Samehada Otoko to Momoiji Onna, which I'm sure you've seen but if you haven't you should) instead. My local DVD emporia are sadly devoid of... well, almost anything Japanese within their foreign sections, save for the obligatory (and slim) Kurosawa. Alas and woe.