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***Bob Schroeck*** · 2016-09-30: Everyone's Still a Critic

Everyone's Still a Critic
by InquisitiveRaven, Rob Kelk and Robert M. Schroeck

September 30, 2016
Maison d'Orléans
Orléans, Loiret department, France

(Dialogue translated from the French)

Marinette paused the Blu-Ray disk and gave Jehanne an incredulous look. "They kidnapped you out of a church the night before a battle?"

The older girl smiled, displaying teeth that Marinette still thought were extraordinarily straight and white for a 15th-century peasant. "I would not say 'kidnapped'. I thought they were angels sent by Archange Michel at first and went willingly." She shrugged. "By the time I knew better, I was too busy exploring their time and learning what I could that might help the King's troops." Her expression grew distant for a moment. "I have never regretted not having learned to read more than I did during my few hours in that palace of a marketplace -- all that knowledge in its bookstores, denied me."

Adrien shook his head. "How could you mistake them for angels? They're idiots."

Jehanne favored him with a flat look. "When two figures appear in a pillar of light and metal and glass in front of the altar of the cathedral where you're praying, what else could they be? In truth, a pair of errant schoolboys looking to complete an assignment was not my first thought." She paused for a moment, then added with a sly little smile, "Besides, I'm still not entirely sure you two aren't angels. You have power far beyond anything any human possesses, and Archange Michel clearly favors you as much as he does me."

"If you say so," Adrien replied doubtfully.

Jehanne shook her head in amusement. "Angels or not, I enjoy your company and friendship. And in truth, so did I Bill and Ted's. Although I do wish they had learned my proper name, even if they could not speak a word of French. 'Darc' was my father's name, not mine."

October 1, 2016
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA

Mio suddenly shot up out of her seat. "Pause it! Pause it!" she shouted, and Ritsu obliged.

"What is it, Mio-chan?" Yui asked, sharing puzzled glances with Yugi.

Mio had begun stalking around the living room of the apartment, waving her arms. It was the most agitated any of them, except perhaps Ritsu, had ever seen her. "I can't believe it!"

"Can't believe what, sempai?" Azusa asked.

Mio halted and pointed at the TV screen. "That!"

"That" was K-On! the Movie, frozen on a frame showing the members of Hokago Tea Time crossing a street in London during their graduation trip. In response to the puzzled silence that ensued, Mio took a deep breath and explained, "That's Abbey Road! We crossed Abbey Road! And I never noticed!" she concluded in almost a wail.

"To be fair, sempai," Azusa said after a moment, "none of us noticed. It didn't look like the album cover from where we were. It was just another crosswalk."

"It's surprising that there weren't any tourists there to clue us in, though," Mugi noted.

October 17, 2016
The Anything Goes Cafe
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada

Ranma Saotome was getting used to using a computer by doing what he thought was completely natural: looking for mentions of himself on the Internet.

"Hah! Hey, Na-chan!"^[1]

"Don't call me 'Na-chan'," Nabiki Tendo complained from the far side of the building's lounge in front of the Anything Goes Cafe. She was older than him, after all.

"You've heard of Wikipedia, right?"

"I told you about it, Saotome. It's a good place to start looking for things, as long as they're notable."

"Well, guess who's got a Wikipedia page."

"I know that The Guess Who has a Wikipedia page," she replied while walking over to him, purposefully misunderstanding his statement.

"Not them. I've got a Wikipedia page!"

Completely deadpan, Nabiki said, "I'm so happy for you."

"Nobody else here has one. Guess that shows who's the notable one here!"

"It took you long enough to find it. You have something else, too, that you share with one of the residents in Ottawa." She took the keyboard from him and typed in a URL.

"Hey, thanks." He looked at the screen and started reading, becoming more horrified with every word. "A very specific variety of Intercontinuity Crossover that has proven so popular and spawned so many instances that it practically counts as its own genre: a Ranma ½-Sailor Moon crossover in which girl-form Ranma becomes a member of the Sailor Senshi, or otherwise takes up the role of Magical Girl. So called because Ranma almost always ends up in the Sailor Fuku styled uniforms of the Senshi..."^[2] He turned off the monitor in disgust. "There's no way in Hell I'll take part in a fuku fic!"

Nabiki grinned as she went back to her book. That's what you get for calling me "Na-chan", she thought.

October 18, 2016
The Steeple
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

"I'm not that bad, am I?" Nanoha whined after reading several fanfics that made a big deal of her knack for befriending people with violence.

November 18, 2016
The Steeple
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

"I'm not that bad, am I?" Hayate complained about fanfics playing up her supposed sexual proclivities.

November 19, 2016
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA

She could hear Kuhonbutsu-san through the wall that their apartments had in common. "Come, my brother! We must set to work immediately! ... Did you not see the glorious account of our quest to produce the greatest fan comics ever? Were you not there with us last night as our generous hosts shared the marvelous anime that our efforts deserved? ... Is it not obvious, my brother? We must now tell the story of our arrival in this universe, and our heroic role in saving the multiverse as well! The world, nay, the worlds must know! And the best way, the only way, to tell it is of course as a comic!"

"No," she said quietly, "that isn't the only way. But the story should be told." She started a new word-processor document, put on a headset, and turned on the program's speech-to-text function because she wasn't sure that she had the stamina to be able to type the entire article. "A critical review of the Refuge reality, by Ikumi Tachikawa for the displacees.yggdrasil forum "So You're New to Refuge". Persocom new paragraph.^[3] Fair disclosure: I am one of the people displaced from the world shown in the anime Comic Party and Comic Party Revolution. Persocom new paragraph. Reactions must be judged in context of the background of the people having the reactions. Comic Party is a 2001 anime based on a dating sim of the same name, where Kazuki Sendō has to complete and sell a new doujin to sell at the Comic Party convention every month, while pursuing the girl that he prefers and also attending college classes. The anime takes some liberties with the plot of the game in that there are fewer conventions for Sendō-san to attend and more attention paid to both the actual process of creating doujinshi and the girls that Sendō-san dates. Persocom backspace one word. meets. Unlike in the game, Sendō-san does not choose any one of the girls he meets as a love interest. However, Mizuki Takase appears to be the girl who Sendō-san prefers in the anime."

"Really?"

"Persocom pause entry." Ikumi turned to face her apartment-mate. "We watched the anime together, Mizuki-san. Didn't you see how much attention you got from him?"

"I saw how much attention each of the other girls got," Mizuki replied sourly. Dropping the rancor, she added, "He even likes you as a friend."

"And I think of Sendō-san as a friend, too, but I don't want to date him. He's too old for me. I want him to write good stories."

Mizuki smiled at the first-year high-school student's comment about the boy who everybody else from their reality but Chisa and Taishi wanted as a boyfriend. "Oh, and you said 'sell a new doujin to sell'."

"Thanks; I'll fix that in the first edit pass. Our Sendō-san likes you, Mizuki-san. He stopped working on his doujin to paint a portrait of you, after all."

"That was my evil twin, not me."

"He didn't know that."

"So," Miyuki asked, "who do you think Kazuki should end up with?"

"You'll just have to wait until I've finished this article to find out," the younger of the two redheads said with a smile before turning back to her computer. "Persocom resume entry. She receives more screen time than any one of the other girls in the cast..."

January 21, 2017
FBI Headquarters
The J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC, USA

When the last episode on the disk concluded, Scully turned her seat to face Mulder. "Your thoughts?" she asked.

"You're prettier than Gillian Anderson," Mulder declared, absolutely straight-faced.

"Thank you," she said dryly, "but that's not what I meant."

Mulder snorted, then waved at the screen with the "X-Files" logo on it. "At least now we understand all the jokes about why we were destined to work together. With this television show still so prominent in the popular culture, a 'real' Mulder and Scully working for the FBI would have been a pair of irresistible targets."

"I don't like the idea that I might have my position in this world's FBI solely because it was someone's idea of a joke," Scully said with a frown.

"If it's any consolation, both our records and the Bureau's personnel files for us say we're not just lazing about here," Mulder noted blandly. "We've got a full caseload that gets us sent all over the country."

"Just like before," Scully acknowledged with a nod. "I would have stormed the director's office if the only reason this assignment existed was just so they could pair us together."

February 9, 2017
Glynn's Wellington House
Dorset Street Upper
Dublin, Ireland

Sam took a long draw on his pint of Guinness, then looked sidewise at Meg, who was studying the head on her own pint. "Thanks for meeting up with me tonight," he said.

She looked up at him, a faint smile dancing on her lips. "No worries. We'd just finished an afternoon of practicing, and we were all going our separate ways before we got sick of each other."

Sam laughed. "Can't see that with your lot -- you seem more like sisters than anything."

Meg raised an eyebrow. "You've never seen sisters fight?"

"Ah," he admitted. "There you have me."

She studied him for a bit before saying, "So... what did you want to talk to me about?"

He shook his head, smiling. "Figured that out, huh? You'd make a good detective. Want to swap jobs?"

"I don't know," Meg drawled. "How's your soprano range?"

"It's rubbish," he said. He took another sip of his Guinness. "I finally got my hands on a copy of the TV show you told me about. Life on Mars?" Meg nodded and Sam went on. "Watched the whole thing end-to-end over the last week."

"And?" she asked before finally taking a sip of her own pint.

"Can't say I'm enamoured of having had some seriously private family matters splattered across the BBC," he growled.

"I might be able to sympathize with that," Meg offered mildly.

"Damn programme was accurate, best as I can recall," he continued as though he hadn't heard her. "But what really has me pissed off is that in the end the damned thing didn't clear up my situation one fucking bit."

She took another drink. "What, you mean whether you were mad, unconscious, or actually in 1973?"

"Yeah," he growled and sucked down nearly half of his pint in one go. "Right to the last it seemed like it was trying to have it all three ways at once." He put his pint back down on the bar hard enough to make the barman look up at the sound.

Meg hmm'ed. "At least you know that you're sane and that this world is real."

He laughed humourlessly. "Meeting a god will do that for you. Whatever else that thing he did accomplished, it certainly grabbed the inside of my head and said 'this is real, lad'." He picked up his pint again and studied the logo on the glass. "I just want to know once and for all what was really going on with me before I arrived here."

"Well," Meg said, "one good thing, regardless -- no creepy little blonde girl with an ugly doll chasing you around any more."

"Oh, yeah," Sam nodded. "That is a definite plus." He held his glass up to her, and Meg lifted to hers to clink against it. "To the real world. Whichever one it is."

Meg nodded. "To the real world."

February 14, 2017
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Somerset, New Jersey, USA

"Whoa, what a crowd," Ritsu declared when the video ended. "We've never played in front of an audience that big."

"There were over 35,000 fans there," Aki said, "more than twice as many as were at the concert in 2009, which was kind of scary."

Satomi laughed. "Kind of? Try 'very'."

"Aki-chan and I are the only ones who had any experience playing music before K-On!," Minako said, "but never in front of a crowd that large."

"We'd better not let Sawa-chan-sensei see those outfits you were wearing," Azusa noted with a smile, "Or we'll be in them next week."

"I hope not!" Yui said with a pout. "I wouldn't look as good as Aki-onee-chan did -- my legs aren't nearly long enough!"

Yoko let loose a peal of laughter. "You think those are bad? You should have seen what they had us wearing during 'Don't Say Lazy'!"

March 12, 2017
Kaleido Stage Dormitories
Venice Beach, California, USA

"Wow," breathed Sora as the video came to an end.

Layla laughed. "Makes all those long, dull hours of practice and rehearsal look exciting, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Sora agreed. "What was the music they were using, though? I thought it might be in English, but I could only catch a couple words here and there."

"Your guess is as good as mine," Layla replied, shrugging. "I couldn't even make out that much."

March 30, 2017
Gulfside Rest
Pensacola Beach, Florida, United States

Once she had ensured that Hikari had departed on the planned bicycle excursion, Rei retreated to the apartment bathroom and stood at the sink, studying her reflection in the mirror there. She tilted her head and considered her image for several minutes, before suddenly erupting in a broad, toothy smile utterly unlike any expression any of her fellow displacees had ever seen on her face.

"Heee~ey," she sing-songed, still grinning.

A moment later the smile vanished, and she frowned minutely before trying again.

An even wider, toothier grin exploded across her face. "Heeeeeeeeee~ey."

After holding the grin for several seconds longer than the first time, Rei let it collapse and admitted disappointment. While as the story she'd found online had suggested, it did have considerable potential for amusement, she did not think she could maintain the persona long enough for a proper pay-off. She would have to reserve it for a special occasion.

In the meantime, she wondered, how hard would it be to find a squeaky rubber hammer the next time they went shopping on the mainland?

March 31, 2017
Gulfside Rest
Pensacola Beach, Florida, United States

"Huh? What's this?" Asuka picked up a thick stack of laser-printed pages held together by a binder clip from where it sat on an endtable in Apartment 3's living room — their apartment manager's living room had turned into a place to hang out months ago. "'NGE: Nobody Dies -- A Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfiction by Gregg Landsman'." She began reading, chuckling darkly at a Shinji who, despite being two years older, seemed even more hapless and pathetic than the one she knew.

Forty-five minutes later she reached the first appearance of her own counterpart.

The subsequent scream of outrage could be heard on the mainland.

June 3, 2017
The Beach House
Seaside Heights, New Jersey, USA

As Sammi stood by smirking, Nicole ejected the DVD after the last episode concluded. Without saying a word she returned it to its case and popped out the next disk, watching her new tenants as she did.

Gilligan was the first to break the silence. "Okay, I know I wasn't the smartest person on the island," he said, looking around the room at his fellow former castaways. "But after watching all that, I have to ask -- what're you guys's excuses?"

July 12, 2017
Castle Pueblo
Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States

When Disney+ returned to the title card for Phineas and Ferb, Linda carefully laid down the remote and looked over at her daughter. "These cartoons are reasonably accurate?" she asked.

"Pretty much," Candace replied. "At least for the stuff I saw."

Linda nodded, mostly to herself. "It seems," she said, "that I owe you an apology, Candace."

July 19, 2017
Tsukuba Space Center
Tsukuba Science City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

Five people — three astronauts and two seiyuu — had gotten together to watch anime. While most people would consider such a thing to be a waste of an astronaut's time, two of the astronauts had come straight out of the show they were watching, so JAXA considered the time to be a familiarization activity.

"Yukari-sempai," Akane Miura asked at the end of the final episode, "did you ever notice that everything your sister Matsuri gets involved in changes from realistic to magical realism?"

The senior astronaut of the Solomon Space Association, Yukari Morita, thought for a moment. "I hadn't noticed until watching the anime about us, but I think you're right, Akane. With all of the superfast astronaut training they were giving us, I didn't have time to really pay attention to what was going on around me. Us."

"Oh, dear," said the remaining astronaut in the room, Naoko Yamazaki. She had been called back to JAXA from her position on the Japanese government's Space Policy Committee because she was the Japanese astronaut with the greatest knowledge of the Rocket Girls, having voiced herself in a cameo during their anime. "Astronauts are supposed to train for years to pay attention to, and think about, what we're seeing and hearing."

"The SSA didn't have years," Yukari pointed out. "They only had weeks to send a person into space or lose their funding. But Director Nasuda was right; even a monkey could have done the job I did during my first mission, at least until the Tampopo catastrophe."

"Monkeys have gone into space in our reality," Yamazaki-san admitted, "but as passengers aboard automated launches, not as crew. I'm impressed that both of you could learn what you needed to learn in such a short amount of time." Akane blushed at the compliment, while Yukari took it in stride. "I noticed right away that Matsuri's scenes are not at all scientifically accurate."

"Such as?" Yukari asked.

"You riding on top of her during re-entry. You might only mass 40kg, but 40kg at 1G is the equivalent of 480kg at 12G, so she should have been crushed. And you didn't have a form-fitting couch to absorb some of the G-forces on your body. The retrieval crew should have had to carry both your bodies out of the capsule, but both of you walked out of Coconut without any injuries instead."

"Are you saying my sister is some sort of magical girl?"

"I can't be sure, but if she was with you, the government would have already asked the transforming heroines who we've been told are in Philadelphia and Ottawa to give her a complete examination." After a moment of thought, Yamazaki-san added, "Perhaps we should ask them to examine you, Yukari."

Shaking her head quickly while frowning, Yukari answered, "We have the same father, not the same mother, and I'm pretty sure Matsuri gets her magical realism from her mother's side of her family."

Akane, on the other hand, asked with wide-eyed amazement, "There are transforming heroines in this reality?"

"They're from other universes, like you," Eri Sendai commented, causing Yamazaki-san to wince at the imprecise use of the term 'universe'. But precise use of language was an occupational hazard of being an astronaut. Akane noticed; Yukari and the seiyuu didn't.

Eri continued, "Many of us seiyuu have been in on the secret for much longer than any government has. Last month, I visited the girls from Girls und Panzer to talk with Suzuki Takako before I voice her again in the upcoming movie series."

"Whatever Girls und Panzer is," Yukari commented. "I suppose there's a half-dozen people out there from other Earths who sound just like us."

"Not as far as I know. I only know about her and you, Yukari-san. I've heard rumours that Hisakawa Aya-san has a half-dozen voice twins, though."

Akane turned to the woman who had voiced her in the anime they had just watched. "How many of your characters have shown up here, Hasegawa-san?"

"As far as I know, just you," Shizuka replied. "Yutaka didn't accompany the Lucky Star characters that are here, and if anybody from any of my other shows is in this world, we don't know about it. I think I like it better that way."

After a moment, Akane nodded. "I think so, too." Then a look of realization appeared on her face. "Hisakawa-san voiced a half-dozen characters who are here, and you've already told us that transforming heroines are here so that implies the existence of magic. Do the people who sound like Hisakawa-san include her roles from Sailor Moon and Ah! Megami-sama?"

"We aren't supposed to tell anyone," Eri replied, "but just by being from another universe lets you in on the secret. Yes to both."

The beginning of a smile played on Yamazaki-san's face, despite her attempt to present a professional face to the others. "And that is the kind of inductive thinking that JAXA and NASA teach us. With the proper training, you just might become a better astronaut than I was, Miura-san."

July 21, 2017
Castle Pueblo
Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States

"Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!" A pair of young and unfortunately shrill voices cut right through Truly's attempt to draft a new item for the agenda of the next Advisory Board meeting. "Oh, you, pretty Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, we..."

Truly sighed and laid down her pen. "Jeremy, Jemima?" she called while rubbing her eyes.

The enthusiastic singing abruptly. "Yes, Mum?" the twins chorused, making her smile.

"Please sing outside?"

"Yes, Mum!" they called back. The rubber-soled shoes they wore now as a matter of course didn't make a sound as they left the apartment, but the door certainly did, slamming enthusiastically behind them. Truly winced at the noise, then picked up her pen again. The 'movie' of their adventures had been quite enjoyable, but Jeremy and Jemima had been insisting on singing its title song for some weeks now, seemingly only stopping at mealtimes or when playing with the Flynn-Fletcher brothers.^[4] Even a doting mother could take only so much.

August 1, 2017
Private home
1721 NW 2nd Street
Abilene, Kansas, USA

James Goodwin lifted the mug of hot chocolate to his lips, sipped it carefully, then set it down and returned to his book. As he turned the pages one by one, the sun slowly sank. He paused only to take further sips from the mug and to turn on the lights when it grew too dark to read.

Upon completing the final page, with its description of Dorothy's return to her aunt and uncle's farm, he closed the book and set it on the end table next to the armchair in which he sat. Then he leaned back and considered the book and its curious parallels to so many people of his acquaintance, past and... well, not present, not any more, but much more recently past. The correspondences were oddly inconsistent -- some were subtle, taking thought to identify, but others were so blatant that had the book not been written more than a century earlier he would have suspected the author of deliberately taunting him. But they were there, and they were indisputable. It could not be a coincidence.

Just as curious, though, were the omissions. There were so many other people who had played important roles in his long, long existence... why had only he and a handful of them been "honored" in this fashion? Why not... her? Surely she was more important than the last generation of allies and agents he had recruited. Why had there been no obvious counterpart to her in the book?

James' stomach growled, and he realized that between his absorption in the book and his ruminations afterward, he had completely missed dinner. He reached for his cane, and with it levered himself up out of his seat. As he made his way to the kitchen, he continued to muse on the curious puzzle. Depending on how you counted, there were either fourteen or forty books in the entire series... perhaps what he looked for would be found in one or more of them.

Or perhaps, once he grew more comfortable with using it, he would start searching the "Internet". It would no doubt be faster than reading forty books. After all, over his existence, he had known so many people. He glanced at his cane and smiled. And he did have a long memory.

August 11, 2017
Castle Pueblo
Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States

When the movie was over, Mortimer turned off the player and the TV with the little remote control box. (And have I mentioned just how neat it was to have a TV the size of a picture window and the ability to watch almost any movie or show you wanted, any time you wanted? It almost made getting kicked out of our own world and time worth it.) "Well, guys?" he asked.

"It stinks!" Dinky piped up immediately. He was so agitated that his voice, already squeaky, got even more so, and you could see the start of tears in his eyes. "They stole the story of our sea monster!" He had a right to be upset... the sea monster was, when you get right down to it, his idea. Yeah, we all built on it, but he came up with it when he needed an excuse for coming home late one night.

Freddy shook his head. "Why'd they cut us out of the story? I mean... I thought Walt Disney was such a great man and here he goes and throws us out of our own adventure." He sulked. "We don't even know anyone named Tippy, Scott or Catfish."

"The books were good," Homer said. "The books were all but perfect -- well, except for making Charlie the narrator." He shot me a smile, letting me know he was just teasing and not serious. "But that ... abomination was unforgivable."

"It's a pity it was made fifty years ago," Jeff mused. "Too long ago to get any kind of revenge on the people responsible."

"Maybe not, but I don't think we want to be bullying a bunch of old folks," Henry replied, a thoughtful look on his face. "At least Mr. Brinley got some credit."

August 25, 2017
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud
Montréal, Quebec, Canada

"Have you seen some of the fanfiction about us?"

Konata grinned at Kagami's question. "I see you finally found the lemons."

"Is that what they're called? Anyway. Why would anybody think I'd ever do that?" She pointed at one of the windows on her screen. "Or this? Or this? Or... actually, that one looks interesting."

Miyuki looked over Kagami's shoulder and read the first few lines. "According to my pre-med textbooks, that's anatomically impossible."

"Oh... Drat."

RK: "Nabs" is a fanon nickname which cannot be written in hiragana, katakana, or kanji. "Na-chan" is our best guess as to what Ranma is actually calling Nabiki in all of those other fanfics, and is sufficiently diminutive that she would take offence to being called by it.
RK: Quote from "Fuku Fic", from All The Tropes, is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. And fair disclosure: The person who wrote this scene is an administrator at All The Tropes.
RK: No, Ikumi isn't referring to Chobits. See the first footnote in A Serotinal Frolic Chapter 1 for details.
RMS: Yes, the Potts twins hang out with Phineas and Ferb. Wait until you see who else lives in their residence. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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