Tokyo Ew Ew: Llamarama
Meh. School makes me feel like I have a polar bear inside my head. My brain's overly warm and too fuzzy and occasionally makes incomprehensible angry noises. It (meaning school) also sucks the creativity and humor out of me.
And that's my excuse for this taking so long.
Well, that, and the fact that the way I wanted this story to go was too MST-ish, so I had to re-think the entire thing with my polar bear brain.
But you don't care what artic mammals are making themselves comfortable inside my skull, right? You want to read the review replies from the last chapter of TEE!
Well, okay, I'm sure you'd all much rather just read the story, but the review replies come first.
Amme Moto: Hey, I'm just as worthy of a Grammy as anyone who actually wins 'em….even though I write satire and not music… (snort) as if any of the winners write their own music… And don't worry, I misspell constantly. It took me about four chapters of TEE before I spelled "Tokyo" right every time.
Quicksilver foxx: Yeah, LS is, in his/her own words, "A IDIOT." And I kinda hope he/she was being defensive when she flamed TEE, because if he/she's just that much of a hater, that's just sad. (shudder) Never, ever, say the Z-word again in conjunction with this fandom. Please.
I'm glad you liked the ending. It was hugely anticlimactic, but I think that works for that story.
Animefreak0123: Thanks for apologizing for the flame, even if it was pretty obviously defensive. You story has gotten loads better, though… And, shh, using reviews to chat is illegal. Not that I'm gonna tell anyone.
Koushu: Of course! Making sense is sooo overrated. And your story, because it is worthy as an ensemble fic, and because none of the boys from the series are overpowered, is granted the (unofficial) Official sakuuyan Stamp of Better-Sue! It's not quite as prestigious as the award you gave me, but they're pretty rare.
Spaceman Spiff (Emily): Your reviews are long and wonderful! You should totally get an account and write, because you make no sense sometimes, but you do it hilariously! Well, okay, I'm obviously partial to nonsense, but Mary-Sue fics rarely make sense, and people seem to like them… I'm not sure where my point went. Um, it's here somewhere… Oh, yeah. You should write.
As to Keiichiro doing a Trump… I just heard him in my mind, saying that pretty much all throughout TEE. There was just never an opportunity to use it until that point. And I'm so glad we've identified at least one of the passersby… I seriously considered asking if people would like to have a cameo in the story (they would have been the passersby), but then I realized that inserting authoresses into the story kinda went against the point of the story (i.e. "self-insertions are dumb").
Furthermore, I am fully convinced that octopi (and emus) are going to save the world from the penguins.
And thanks for the award. I should complain about not getting awards more often. I got two (and a Grammy) after I said that.
hm: I'm really quite satisfied with the ending, so I'm glad you liked it.
Super Lucky Tiki Charm: Thankies!
Akumu Keayo: Actually, I adore TMM too, which is why I wrote TEE. It was sort of an odd public service announcement, at least in my mind. (The message? Friends don't let friends write bad Mary-Sue fics.) And thank you for the suggestions, but I'm going in somewhat of a different direction with this story. Ichigo won't appear for many chapters, if she does at all. And, no, I don't hate Ichigo. I pretty much like all the TMM characters at least a little bit, because I don't parody things I have no love whatsoever for. That's just bashing.
Mew Cherryblossom: I'm glad you enjoyed it enough to read it all the way through. And then comment. Thanks!
Shinsei Tsukiko: Now, if you had said that I was a worse writer than all the Mary-Sue-writers out there, I would have been proud anyway. But I guess this is better. And, yeah, Mary-Sues have taken over pretty much every fandom I've ever liked… But I'd say TMM is one of the worst (Sailor Moon is pretty bad, too) as far as OCs go. Petshop of Horrors seems to be strangely immume to Mary-Sues, though, so if you want some OC-free fanfiction, I suggest looking at PSoH.
The receptionist watched the brown-haired girl who had been pacing the waiting room for some time now, seemingly without any intention of signing in or making an appointment. As enjoyable as watching her flit nervously from one side of the room to the other, it was giving the receptionist eyestrain.
"Can I help you?" the receptionist called out in a slightly nasal voice. The brown-haired girl jumped in shock, as though she had forgotten that there was anyone else in the room. The girl walked hesitantly up to the receptionist's desk.
"Um… Yes, ma'am. I'm here to apply for a job…" she said in a voice surprisingly loud for one so timid. The receptionist just raised one penciled-in eyebrow line.
"Well, do you have an appointment, miss…." The receptionist trailed off with a significant look at the brunette girl. It took the girl long moments to get the hint.
"Oh, my name is Llama Shizuka. Um, and Llama's my first name, even though I'm Japanese, because the authoress who made me didn't know about family names coming first, not that that matters, I'm not sure any of them do," Llama said, apparently unaware that she was babbling. "And, no, I don't have an appointment, because my story ended and I really need a new job but none of the other places will hire me and I really need a job because not many people saw my old story anyway, so I can't live off the royalties from that, and I just really need a job."
When she stopped babbling and looked down, Llama noticed that the receptionist had fallen dead asleep; snores, eye-twitches, everything. As Llama made a move to shake her awake, the unemployed OC's arm knocked a heavy book off the desk, and the resulting boom woke the receptionist up quite thoroughly.
"Whazzat?" The receptionist said sleepily as her head jerked up at the noise. She blinked a couple times, which seemed to give her her bearings back. "Oh. You're still here."
"Um, yes?"
"Well then. You don't have an appointment, but I think I can get you an interview."
"Really!" Llama asked excitedly. "When? With whom?"
"Right now. Me," came the flat reply.
"Ooh, really? Do you do normally do interviews?"
"Heck no. I'm just a receptionist."
"Oh. That's still cool!" Llama's excitement appeared to have clouded any common she possessed. "Um, so what do I need to do?"
"Just answer some questions."
"Okay!"
"First of all, do you have Mew Mew powers of improbable origin?"
"Yep! The only reason I even still have my powers from my last story is that the authoress couldn't think of a good explanation why I should lose them."
"Perfect. Secondly, what are your flaws?" Llama replied without hesitation.
"I'm clumsy and kinda stupid and I say 'um' too mu--"
"You don't have any idea what being a Mary-Sue even means, do you?" The receptionist asked, cutting Llama off in mid-flaw.
"Being, um, a well-rounded, interesting character?" The receptionist just stared incredulously at Llama for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. The laughter went on and on as the receptionist fell out of her chair. It continued going on until Llama began to suspect that it was in fact a laugh track such as one might find in a bad script-format comedy fic. But she couldn't see any sort of laugh-track mechanism, so presumably the receptionist was doing all that laughter and apparently not taking any breaths.
Eventually though, the receptionist stopped laughing, got up off the floor, wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes, brushed herself off, went off and made coffee, watched a short film, and finally came back and noticed Llama, who had not moved the entire time, and who had also quite failed to get the joke.
"Um... Did I say something funny?" The brown-haired girl asked.
"Mary-Sues being well-rounded? And interesting?" The receptionist fought back a fresh wave of laughter. "With flaws? Heck, any Mary-Sue who even thought of having a flaw would be out of a job before she could say, 'Gee, maybe we should try to avoid cliché.' No wonder no one read your other story. You must a crap Mary-Sue."
"Actually, I, um, I wasn't the Mary-Sue in my other story. She lost her powers, so she had to go and look for work in more realistic fandoms. I was just a supporting OC..."
"You can work in the pit."
"Um, I'm not sure that I heard you right. Did you just say the pit?"
"Yeah. It's where we keep all the Mary-Sue videos for the girls who are currently inactive. Your job will be to catalogue them. The video hold is in the basement of the studio, so no one will ever see you, which is perfect. And who knows, you might pick up a few tips from real Mary-Sues."
"If I do good, can I be promoted to a Mary-Sue?"
"Oh, possibly," the receptionist replied with as much sarcasm as she could muster. Then, realizing that sarcasm went right over Llama's head, she amended, "No. Definitely not."
Ouch. An entire chapter without any of the real characters in it. I really have to figure out a way to get them in there, 'cause I hate stories like this.
Oh, and it'll get funnier. I promise. I just had to set everything up in this chapter. And, just so you know, any grammatical mistakes in Llama's dialogue are intentional.