A/N: And here's the next chapter of this wonderful guide that has a title which reminds you of food... and I apologise in advance for the amount of capitals included. Forgive me.

Advertising: In gratitude and because this is the one that finally inspired me to make my own, there's another Guide out there which is superbly funny and accurate, by Facade: The Double Ds of SC. Take a look, I know you won't be disappointed.

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Universe of Tragedies

As in all 'Alternate Universe' fanfiction, there comes a time when everybody is together and seated around some vague, undescribed room, possibly at school/boarding school/one of their homes. There had been some leaps and bounds in romantic plot development and the author felt that it was time to dramatically reveal everybody's pasts. This was usually around, oh, chapter two. And it also usually involved tears.

"Oh woe is me," moaned Amu pathetically, "I saw my parents DIE HORRIBLY right in front of my eyes as my house caught on FIRE and my subsequent foster parents are MEAN and ABUSIVE! I'm, like, so tragic." She sniffled, immediately garnering the sympathy of all those present. A couple of them discretely took out dictionaries to check what the word 'subsequently' meant. It usually wasn't present in the kinds of stories with these kinds of, let's be honest, unimaginative, unrealistic and generally useless dark pasts.

"You saw your parents die? Well mine was MURDERED in front of me," said Tadase forlornly, "and so was my BEST FRIEND when we were caught by TERRORISTS." Wow, terrorists. That was actually much more creative than what usually happened to Tadase which was... nothing. Except, perhaps, the generic death of a close relative. "And my DOG died too! I LOVED my dog!"

"Mine died (horribly) when I was KIDNAPPED and RAPED," was Rima's sob-story. "But even before their deaths they were always FIGHTING and YELLING and didn't CARE about me. They should have CARED more instead of SQUABBLING over their own PERSONAL ISSUES. They were so SELFISH!" She then proceeded to burst into uncharacteristic tears. Because Rima would be such a teary person. The people with the dictionaries flipped to 'squabble', since that didn't pop up very often either.

Kukai was next in line, ready with his own sentence full of out-of-place caps and unrealistic reactions. "My parents died in a CAR ACCIDENT and all three of my brothers died TWO YEARS later when our house caught on FIRE (like Amu's) while trying to SAVE me. And my new FOSTER PARENTS are DRUNKARDS!" But, because Kukai's so manly (and a GOD of SMEXINESS), he didn't cry even though the memories were really, really BAD. They caused him PAIN. (A/N: Aw, poor tortured Kukai! It's so CUTE!) *fangirl scream*

Utau nodded sagely. "I was RAPED too. And ABUSED by our STEP-father, and our mother is nothing more than a PUPPET on DRUGS. I was a DRUGGIE with an EATING DISORDER as well." Then, being the soft, dependent, weak, vulnerable and overemotional female that she was, Utau wailed into Kukai's manly shirt. He held her comfortingly with his hot, manly man-arms.

Nagihiko cleared his throat, staring SADLY at them all. "My TWIN SISTER and I watched as our parents were MUGGED and KILLED in front of us. Then we were SEPARATED when we were ADOPTED (OH NOES! The horror!) and I never saw her again. Just because the family was NICE that didn't mean that they had the right to SEPARATE us," he ranted heatedly, "a better future, education, good role-models and being well cared for is NOTHING when compared to my SISTER!" And, because Nagihiko was a sensitive guy, he let a tear slip down his cheek. (A/N: Isn't that so sweet?)

"I KNOW! I mean, how could grown-ups be so STUPID as to offer STABILITY to children that they thought NEEDED it?" asked Rima incredulously. The others chorused their agreement although to the readers that had some sense, it probably sounded as though stability was something that their lives sorely lacked and which they really needed, preferably in large doses as soon as possible.

"Really? I thought that I was the ONLY ONE to feel that kind of PAIN. I thought I was ALL ALONE in the world," cried Amu, absurdly happy that everybody else had just as horrible or possibly worse experiences than she had.

"Oh, don't be SILLY," said Utau, resurfacing from sobbing wretchedly into manly Kukai's buff, manly chest. There were no signs on her face of her having cried as ferociously as she had, but everybody dismissed this since she had been a model. "If there was NOBODY else with a TRAGIC, heartbreaking, distressing, TRAGIC, upsetting, tear-jerking, TRAGIC, pitiful, painful, touching, TRAGIC, awful, TRAGIC, dreadful, horrible, terrible, TRAGIC, disastrous, TRAGIC, difficult, sad, sad, sad, sob-worthy, TRAGIC, sad, frightful, TRAGIC past, then who would you IDENTIFY and MAKE FRIENDS with during the course of the story?" she reasoned.

There was a small break as everybody looked up the words that they didn't know and marvelled on the fact that she hadn't stopped to draw breath during the entire sentence.

"You know, you're so totally right," said Amu, tearing up gratefully. "I'm so glad I have you guys. You are the BEST friends EVAR!" (A/N: OMG this is so touching im cryingggg! *teartear*)

Her tears set the others off again, and Utau bawled into Kukai's manly shirt. (You knew it was manly because it had monkeys on it. Only a very manly man would wear something with monkeys on his shirt.)

"My PARENTS!" cried Amu miserably. "The years of ABUSE!"

"My PARENTS! My BEST FRIEND! And MOST IMPORTANTLY, my DOG!" wailed Tadase. "Darn those TERRORISTS!"

"My PARENTS too! Their SELFISHNESS and ARGUING!" Rima joined in, because it was obviously what Rima would do. "And the TRAUMA of being RAPED!"

Rustles filled the room along with the whimpers of the crying characters as they flipped to the T section of their dictionaries.

"My PARENTS! My BROTHERS! My HOUSE! Those eternally DRUNK FOSTER PARENTS!" shouted Kukai, still holding his tears back due to his manliness. Even if he did cry, the tears would be MANLY tears if it was Kukai.

There were more rustles as they all tried to figure out what 'eternally' meant with the help of these out-of-date dictionaries with actual paper pages. What were they, they thought sulkily, cavemen?

"My PARENTS! YES!" howled Utau, once again prying herself away from Kukai (who was manliness incarnate). "The RAPE! The ABUSE! The non-blood-related STEP-FATHER! The AILING HOSPITALISED MOTHER! The DRUGS! The BULIMIA NERVOSA!"

More flickering of pages. Nobody used the word ailing when they could use sick. If they were feeling particularly inventive, perhaps they would use ill, but that would be going out on a limb.

"My PARENTS!" wept Nagihiko, "My TWIN SISTER! STUPID RICH ADULTS that DON'T UNDERSTAND MY FEELINGS!"

They bawled together, wallowing in misery and self-pity while clutching at their rather handy but prehistoric books. It took them a while to detect the presence of somebody who'd stayed silent and unnoticed through this entire exchange.

"... Yaya?" Nagihiko snivelled curiously.

"... Yeah?" she replied, unusually quiet and refusing to meeting anybody's eyes.

"What's your tragic past?" asked Utau, getting to the point. She wanted to bury herself in pure manliness again as soon as possible.

"Well," she started off slowly, "Yaya's kinda worried that Yaya's baby brother will take Yaya's place in Yaya's parents' lives...?" Any hope of them accepting this as a tragic past vanished at their 'are you kidding me?' looks.

"Um... Yaya," said Amu with a tolerant smile, "we don't mean to be rude, but I think I speak for everyone when we say that we don't think we can be friends anymore. I hope you understand," she said sincerely.

"What?" she asked.

Utau shrugged helplessly. "Someone who hasn't been through the sort of experiences we have obviously could never understand us or the way we think," she explained apologetically.

"Yeah," agreed Kukai, "how would we ever be able to show our vulnerable (read: pathetic and sad) side to someone who hasn't had a tragic past?"

"Without some kind of horrible parental situation," Rima said, obligingly enlightening her, "or the deaths of a close relative or friend..."

"Or dog," interjected Tadase.

"Or dog," acceded Rima, "or at the very least some other form of strong abuse, you just don't have a horrible enough life to be in our group."

"You are officially," declared Amu, "SHUNNED!"

And with that, they turned their backs on the only person not to have been granted a sufficiently tragic ordeal. Yaya was cast out for not having a terrible life and not given any more show-time, because people without some tragedy in their lives just can't be interesting characters. Nobody wanted to read about normal people with normal problems or normal lives. In fact, so many fanfiction authors follow this logic that tragic pasts have become normal, and normal has become, well, abnormal.

What happened to the characters, I don't hear you asking? Well Amu, Rima, Utau, Tadase, Nagihiko and Kukai (manly, manly man that he is) continued on moaning every afternoon during the meetings of their little club and never amounted to anything. Yaya decided that, since she was relatively normal, she would follow a goal and do the best that she could, becoming mildly successful. And finally, Ikuto (as well as Kairi, Sanjou, Nikaido and the parents who were mostly dead anyways, but they don't matter so much) isn't mentioned in this chapter of tragic pasts just for a slight change of pace.

THE END

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A/N: Everybody's parents are always murdered. Foster parents are always bad. People around them are always dead. Can nobody think of anything more interesting to put your characters through? And the fact that this chapter relates (although to a lesser extent, I hope) to me should tell you that we can all fall into this trap very easily. But seriously, if you're going to have the characters go through something that awful, think about how their personalities would turn out. They're not going to be just shy and withdrawn, or tough and rash. No, they'd have more than one single layer. So I beg of you: think.

That is all.