Title: In the Beginning; or a Cautionary Tale
Author: Dan
Archive: GWA
Timeline: N/A
Genre: On Crack
Disclaimers: No mine, no sue. Except for Jude. She, unfortunately, is mine.
Note: Because I could not come up with this without provocation, this is All Hope's Fault.
Further Note: Codeine makes me nuts.
A spotlight illuminates a girl sitting at a white desk typing madly on a rather battered laptop that's covered with stickers reading "Bitch Goddess," "Bisweptual," "CREW: We do more before 8:00am than most people do all day," and one sticker of a very stoned looking frog. The girl has short brown hair that curves along the line of her chin and little round glasses perched on her nose. She wears tattered jeans, no socks, and heavy work shirt that looks suspiciously similar to her father's work shirt with only two buttons buttoned. She hums cheerfully under her breath as she types.
Beyond the circle of light that illuminates the mad typist there is only darkness-that sort of inky darkness of a stage just waiting for mayhem. The girl chews on her bottom lip thoughtfully, completely oblivious to the ominous silence growing around her, and then starts humming happily again.
"Stop that."
"GYAH!"
The girl falls out of her chair in shock. A slightly taller girl stands behind the chair out of which the typist just fell out. This new girl has dark, curly auburn hair and a rather irritated expression in her hazel eyes. She wears black leather pants, a black leather jacket with a white t-shirt underneath, and calf high biker boots. She arches one eyebrow and glares down at the girl on the ground.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Jude."
"Ermmmm... You're just a character I thought up; you don't really exist." The girl on the floor looks around nervously. For a moment she thought she heard a faint cord of music. Something that went suspiciously like this-'Dun dun dun DUNN.' --- ["There was no music."
"Yes, there was. Trust me. And it went 'Dun dun dun DUNN'."
"There are no sound tracks up here-in here-where ever the hell here is."
"Yes, there are. How else do you explain the 'ESCAFLOWNE ESCAFLOWNE' chant that follows Van around? Or the 'Toki ni Ai wa' song that starts up every time Anthy and Utena start giving each other significant looks? Or the 'Rhythm Emotion' song that plays whenever anyone in the GW cast is doing something cool or important?" Hm? HM?"
"Okay, fine. Maybe you have a point. But the soundtrack did NOT go-"Dun dun dun DUNN."
"Oh, yes, it did."] ---
"That's what you think. Now knock it off."
"Knock what off?"
"Humming with little hearts at the end of it! ESPECIALLY when you're angsting the crap out of me!"
The girl on the floor pouts a little. "But I like making you all angsty. It makes me feel better."
Jude performs a facepalm with the perfect form. "Great. I'm just mental punching bag."
Little irritation marks-which could look like number symbols to the untrained-appear on Jude's head and at the end of her sentence.
The girl on the floor looks around, apparently noticing the fact that she's in a circle of bright light-the spotlight seems to have grown a little bit-surrounded by a deep darkness for the first time. "Where are we?"
Jude looks at the other girl in disbelief. "Muse Space. YOUR Muse Space, git."
"Oh," the other girl says intelligently before standing up and brushing herself off. She sticks her hand out towards Jude: "I'm Dan."
Jude gives her a look that could kill at forty feet. Fortunately, Dan's immune to nasty looks-or at least Jude's nasty looks. "I know that. You're the one who thought me up, remember?"
Dan shuffles her feet. "Well, yeah, but I didn't know if you would know my name, and stuff." She gestures vaguely. "I'm not real sure what sort of relationship we have, or, um, what to do now that I've got you--and you actually talk to me--and I have a Muse Space, you know?"
Tall auburn-haired, creation-of-Dan's-imagination looks rather pained. "I so did not want to hear that."
Dan pats Jude on the shoulder in a reassuring sort of way. "I'm sure we'll figure it out together."
Jude gives Dan a curious look. "Doesn't it worry you in the slightest that you're talking to a figment of your imagination?"
"No, not really." ---
Jude watches Dan snarl wordlessly at the computer screen with mild amusement. She's been living in this dark corner of Dan's mind for a while now and feels reasonably content-especially now that she's managed to talk Dan into creating another character to share the angst with. "Problem?"
Dan glowers at Jude for a moment, and then belatedly wonders when the spotlight grew another seven feet and where they got the couch from, much less the newspaper. "Stupid fanfic authors."
"I've been saying that for a while now. What's brought you around?"
Dan waves her hands around in great agitation. "Don't get me wrong, I like yaoi, but do they have to write all women like they're psycho bitches out break up the beautiful yaoi relationship just about bloom into deep and meaningful meeting of two soul mates? I mean, come on, most girls I know would be tickled pink at the idea of two of their guy friends falling for each other, not grossed out. I'm not all that weird, am I?"
"Yes," Jude mutters quietly, "you are."
Dan gives Jude a sidelong suspicious look, but decides to ignore the other girl. "Besides, most of these authors happen to be girls, what gives with all the misogyny? So they're not interested in writing het. relationships, cool. But do they have to make the girls so ... so ... so ... "
"Skanky?"
"Yeah."
Jude shrugs eloquently. "Fandom stereotypes and clichés."
Dan scowls. "It sucks. I mean, Relena's not that bad. She kinda makes sense, really."
Jude arches one eyebrow.
The bespectacled author looks defensive. "Okay, so she doesn't make much sense for the first couple episodes, but after that-"
Jude snickers.
Dan glowers. "Okay, okay, so she makes absolutely no sense for the first third of the show, but after that-"
Jude raises both eyebrows, the corner of her mouth twitching.
Dan looks down right mutinous. "Fine. Relena makes no sense for the first half of the show, and after that the coherent policy she does espouse is freaking pipe dream, but she's got balls-you have to give her that."
"She does have 'balls,' at least in a metaphorical sense."
"And she is NOT crushing on Heero."
Jude looks bemused. "She's not?"
"Well, maybe for a little while, but look at the UST between her and Dorothy!"
"UST? Do I even want to know?"
"Unresolved Sexual Tension."
"And Dorothy is?"
"A psycho bitch from hell."
Jude gives Dan a look that clearly states she's wondering whether or not Dan ought to be committed. "This is a good thing?"
"Yep. I like her that way."
Jude opens her mouth as if to ask a question, but then closes it firmly. 'Not,' she thinks, 'going to go there with a twenty foot pole.'
"You know you could do something about the way the girls are written in GW fandom," she says in her smoothest voice.
"I could?"
"Sure, start writing the girls yourself."
"Hmmmm... "
"Here, I'll even help you... " ----
[ "That's is not how I remember that conversation going at all."
"It's not? I remember it going exactly like that."
"If I remember correctly, you came out of the Lurker's Retreat in Capow, plopped a Plot Bunny in my lap for Halcyon, slapped me upside the head to make sure you had my attention, and said 'Write this.' No explanation, no nice words, no offers to help."
"Could have sworn that's how we started Halycon."
"Trust me. That's not how we got into this mess."
"It's not that bad."
"Angels in the rafters, mechs propped up in the corners, rampaging swordsmen in the hallways, wild snogging on any even slightly horizontal surface, and you don't call this a mess?"
"Nope, I call it a damned good time."
Somewhere in the distance the Fourth Wall shakes violently and little bits of concrete drift gently onto ... into ... over... Well, they drift somewhere, and it's probably in a downward direction.] ---
The next day, or at least some sort of long-ish period of time, Jude wanders back into the Muse Space through a door marked 'To the Retreat (we think)' holding something small and furry. She drops it into Dan's lap with particularly smug expression. "Here."
Dan blinks at the little fuzzball now firmly ensconced in her lap. "What is it?"
"A bunny."
Dan rolls her eyes. "Thank you Captain Obvious." Her eyes grow wide in sudden horror. "Oh shit, not one of those bunnies... '
Jude just smirks.
"I don't *do* fanfiction!" Dan wails at the top of her lungs. "I just *read* it!"
"Bastardized!Relena."
"grrrr... ."
"Femme!Duo."
"Grrrrr... "
"Psychotic!obsessed!Relena"
"Grrrr!"
"Do you want me to keep going, or do you want me to stop here?"
"Fine. I'll write it, damn you." --- ["'Fine. I'll write it, damn you.' That does seem to be a repetitive theme around here."
"... "
"Ah, by the silence, I know you know that I'm right."
"You don't need to sound so smug about it."
"Considering I so rarely get you to do anything, much less concede that I'm right, I'll gloat if I want to."
"Muses, bah."] ---
Dan sits staring at the computer with a half-amazed, half-terrified expression on her face. "It's done."
Jude leans over her shoulder. "Yep, so it is."
"Well, now what I do?" she asks what she now rather resignedly thinks of as her muse.
Jude gave her a wicked smirk. "You post it."
"eep."
--- ["I did NOT say 'eep'!"
"Oh, yes, you did. It was so cute to."
"If you weren't an insubstantial figment of my imagination, I would kill you."
"Heero's really been harassing you for fic-time, hasn't he? You're stealing his lines."
"... "
"Don't fume like that. You'll get wrinkles."] ---
"Wow." Is all Dan can think to say.
"What's up?"
"I've got, like, readers."
"That does tend to happen when you actually post fics," Jude replies more amused than sarcastic. She leans over Dan's shoulder, desperately trying for casual and failing miserably. "Lemme see."
**KABAM!**
"Eep!" Dan falls off her chair.
"... the hell?" Jude turns around to greet the intruders to what has now definitely been dubbed "The Muse Space."
Hilde throws her military duffel bag on the floor of the Muse Space, and looks around. "So where's my room?"
"eepp?" Dan's eyes, if it is possible, gets rounder behind her little circle glasses.
"... Will you get *off* me?" an irritated female voice asks. Relena stalks into the room with Dorothy more of less firmly attached to her. Relena tosses another bag next to Hilde's. The two girls share significant looks and then look at Dorothy. Dorothy smirks, detaches herself from Relena, and then snaps her fingers. A pile of suitcases falls from nowhere into the middle of the room. Hilde laughs and shakes her head. Relena closes her eyes and presses two fingers to her temples.
"Oh, lookie, a horizontal space," Dorothy coos with delight. (which makes everyone else stare at her with expressions of either sheer terror or dumbfounded bewilderment. Dan's left eye twitches.) "Wanna snog?"
Relena facepalms.
The circle of light grows a little bigger. Actually, it grows a helluva lot bigger. Furniture starts popping to existence left and right, the Muse Space actually starts gaining, *gasp*, some sort of architectural design.
---- [ "If the architect had been on /crack/ maybe."
"It's not that bad."
"... "
"Okay, so we have windows and doors without walls. We have stairs that don't lead to anything-and, actually, look like they got ripped out of an M.C. Esher drawing. We have rafters, but no discernable ceiling. And we've got furniture that morphs."
"On crack."
"It is inside *your* head, since it's your Muse Space."
"Further proof that college has driven me crazy."
"You keep thinking that sweetie."
... .. .
"So what's going Law School going to do to me?"
... ..
"Don't pat me on the head and look at me like that. It's scary."] ------
In the darkness next to the door with the sign that reads 'To the Retreat' there is a little ... wobble. A little shimmering in the dark starts to grow, hesitate for a moment, and then another door appears with an almost apologetic *pop*.
The door has a sign as well, it reads "To GW".
Dan glares at Jude. "You said just this once! You said we'd only be kinda fic writers!" Dan's voice rises in pitch. Hilde, Relena, and Dorothy exchange glances, and then smirk. "You said that this wasn't permanent!"
Hilde kneels next to Dan, and pats her shoulder reassuringly. "Sweetie... "
Dorothy beats her to the punch. "Dan, you can't be 'only kinda a fic writer' any more than you can be 'only a little pregnant.' Either you are, or you aren't."
The girls look at Dan expectantly. Dan crosses her arms over her chest and looks mutinous. "I'm not."
The three girls smirk, and, as one, present her with plot bunnies. Hilde's bunny has long droopy ears and huge sad eyes. Dorothy's bunny, scarily enough, looks normal. It even looks ... sweet. And tiny. Relena's has teeth, big, huge, SHARP, teeth. It somehow looks like a mad scientist's attempt to cross a wolf with a rabbit.
Relena drops her bunny into Dan's lap. "Like hell you're not a fic writer. We've been waiting long enough. Get going."
Dan looks at Relena, looks at the plot bunny (which is enthusiastically chewing on her ankle), and then looks at Jude. Jude shrugs. Relena arches an eyebrow. Dan sighs. "Fine. I'll write it. dammit."
--- ["HAH! I *told* you that you always say that! Always."
"Screw you."
"You're propositioning the voice inside your head? I knew you were nuts I didn't know you were that nuts."
"Dan?" A third voice breaks in. "Do you remember that fic you were writing? You know, the one where I might actually get laid for once?"
"Fine, dammit, I'm coming."
If a smirk could make a sound, this smirk would make a very pleased, purring, devious sound.] ----
For all of you without muses. I have only one thing to say: 'Run. Run while you still can.'
The End
(:./dan/beginning)
