The Fan Fiction Cafe

by The Ghost Host

How do Fan Fictions get there start? How did Douglas Adams come up with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? And just what is the Fan Fiction Cafe? These questions and more, might, be answered... Rated K for violence with a potato gun...

The Fan Fiction Café

An Assorted Fan Fiction of Sorts, First in What May be A Series

DISCLAIMER:
This Story Was Not Written to Offend Anyone. Any Offense Taken Therefore Can Be Considered an Added Bonus
The Fan Fiction Café is quite a remarkable place. It is, as the name suggests, a café. However instead of catering to a hip crowd of top-notch celebrities and up-and-coming stars, the Fan Fiction Café caters to financially oblivious writers whose only goal in life is to write something someone will actually read. It could be said that a place called "The Fan Fiction Café" would not seem to be the best environment in which to accomplish this goal. However, since you are clearly reading this story, this would perhaps be an incorrect conclusion.

The Fan Fiction Café is, despite its many wonders, a chronically depressed restaurant. You see, it is constructed, or rather was, or perhaps will be… Well, the Fan Fiction Café is in it self a Fan Fiction. The problem seems to originate from the fact that all fan fictions were, and are, and in all likelihood will be, written in the café itself. This means that the café itself must necessarily have been, or perhaps will be, created within itself. By matter of comparison, had you been created within yourself you would in all likelihood be chronically depressed too.

This depression doesn't seem to have any effect on anything, apart from the fact that all writers since its creation have been financially oblivious people whose only goal in life is to write a story that someone will read. It could perhaps be attributed to the café then that fan fiction reading is now one of the world's top paying jobs. This career path however is not suggested due to the fact that fan fiction readers also suffer one of the highest casualty rates of any other career.

Fascinatingly enough, the complete fictionality of the café, as well as its inability to admit the unlikelihood of its own existence, mean that once in the café all logic and reason, as well as any and all correct uses of the past, present and future tenses, go out the window. This fact is in itself odd since the café has no windows, due to the fact that it is in space. At least the occupants of the café are fairly sure that it is in space, but having never been in space would not know that difference between it and the greater Los Angeles area. These two locations are often mistaken for each other due to their overwhelming similarity,

The owner of the Fan Fiction Café, Matt Blank, has only 1½ employees. Ben Indigo is the bartender, and, like so many fan fictions, having a bartender named Ben has been, or at the very least will be, ripped off by the many writers who visit the café. The sec employee (the ond in second has been omitted for reasons no one fully understands) is named Max Batey, and, while not actually employed by the café, reports to work everyday. Max's usual workday includes washing tables and dishes and writing ways he'll overthrow the government on paper plates. Despite not being employed by the café, Matt recently mentioned to Max that he'd triple his salary. Unfortunately, Max, who was too exited over this announcement to do the necessary calculations, didn't realize until six hours (and fourteen rounds of Phantom Flashers later) that his current salary was zero, and that when tripled, would still equal zero. He was even more disappointed to find that he couldn't get drunk over this discovery because he already was.

"Saaay, Beennn, whet's in deese fanton fashers anyhoo?" mumbled Max. Ben was disappointed to find that there were no other conscious customers at the bar with which he could fabricate an excuse not to talk to Max.

"Carbonated Water, Caramel Color, Aspartame, Phosphoric Acid, Potassium Benzoate, Natural Flavors, Citric Acid, and Caffeine." Said Ben, picking up the can in front of him on which "Phantom Flasher" was scrawled.

"You mix all that yourself?" queried Max, who had not yet gotten the idea.

"No, it's just Diet Coke with some food coloring" replied Ben, the bare signs of a smile appearing on his face. After all, the main difference between the Diet Coke offered on the bar menu and the Phantom Flasher was that the Phantom Flashers cost twice as much.

Max's mind fought to catch up with this latest installment of information. He had just learned a valuable lesson in business and marketing, however, fourteen rounds of Diet Coke was about to get its revenge, and Max was halfway to the bathroom door before the paper plates he had been sitting on landed back on the stool. Ben leaned over the bar curiously to see what Max had been working on under the influence of fourteen Diet Cokes. He only managed to catch the title, "The Top 5 Ways to Regain Congress in 2006" before a customer entering the café caught his attention and he scrambled to the Book to make an entry.

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It was, or quite possibly will be, mentioned before that the Fan Fiction Café is, or was, or will be, a fan fiction in and of itself. It was also, or it will be also, mentioned that this fan fiction was written within the café itself. The fan fiction that inspired the café, or the café that inspired the fan fiction, is, or rather was, or might sometime in the future be, called the Book. The book is, or was, or will be, contained in a large computer buried in the foundation of the café itself. This computer reads out onto a small monitor built into the bar. All events that take place in the café are automatically added to the Book, but the bartender has the power to add additional entries. Due to an overwhelmingly large glitch in the English language, any entries added to the Book are realized in real time in the café. The Book, were it to be printed, would at this point cover some nine-hundred-twenty-eight-billion pages, the average length of most fan fictions. It is because of this that fan fiction reading has one of the top fatality rates of any job in the world- most die of either boredom or old age. One fan fiction reader actually died of over-excitement, but this was later discovered to be due to the fact that he had actually finished the story he was reading. Fortunately, the version of the Book that you are now reading is only about half that long.

Ben barely had time to scrawl in the entry "The barstool cleaned itself" which it of course did, before Kathlyn the Omnipotent Queen of Rolzad exploded into the restaurant. In all actuality, Kathlyn the Omnipotent Queen of Rolzad was merely a writer who had changed her name to that of one of the characters in her many fan fictions. Rolzad was the name of her dog, who had of course been named after the popular movie character. However, she was beautifully adorned in only the finest silk dress and her fine hair flowed in a non-existent breeze. This was merely the result of a mouse trodding on the keyboard of the book, and Ben quickly wiped this entry, at which time Kathlyn the Omnipotent Queen on Rolzad returned to being simply Kathlyn, since she was now wearing the clothes she had bought from a street vendor on her way to the café.

Such events are not uncommon at the Fan Fiction Café, and Kathlyn lazily selected a table and sat down. In accordance with Ben's latest entry in the Book, a waiter, incidentally Max who had been magically zapped from his hiding place in the Men's bathroom, promptly offered her a menu and read her the day's specials, which were not only fictional, but indeed fan fictional, as their titles reflected. The day's offerings included the Phantom of the Filet, The Harry Potter Pot o' Soup, and a mystery dish based on Bill Clinton's autobiography. Kathlyn ordered a Phantom Flasher and The Silence of the Lamb Chops, the café's most popular dish.

I've got an idea, you know," said Kathlyn to the Waiter. "For a fan fic, I think someone might actually read this one."

"Really, what's it about?" said Max, in the sort of tone one uses when they are completely and utterly uninterested in what you're about to say.

"I'm not sure yet." Replied Kathlyn distantly. Max had to try hard not to laugh at this, which was odd since he heard this several times a day, but by the time he reached the bar the laughter exploded out of him with such force that it did not subside for several minutes, causing Max to accidentally bring Kathlyn a Diet Coke instead of the Phantom Flasher that she had ordered. Unfortunately, Kathlyn hated the taste of Diet Coke and much preferred the Phantom Flashers, causing Max to get her a new drink and begin once again to laugh. As to why Max has not as of yet been officially hired by the café you can draw your own conclusions.

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There is somewhat of a good chance that before this point the fact that all fan fictions were, are, and indeed will be created in the Fan Fiction café was mentioned. This may offend some readers who have never stopped in for a drink at the café and may therefore believe that this in some way implies that their no doubt brilliant (and long) works are not fan fiction. This is not true. All fan fictions are first created in the café and then distributed carefully into reality. This process must be carefully monitored to prevent a premature apocalypse, or worse, the accidental release of any fan fiction that someone might actually read. These stories are then plagiarized by lonely authors who have nothing better to do. For the most part this is not a problem since few people ever read these stories and in doing so realize that plagiarizing has taken place. Such legal battles are always won by the café, since its questionable location in the space-time continuum make it impossible to prove you came up with the idea first.

So you see, I'm not saying your story isn't fan fiction, I'm just saying you're guilty of plagiarizing. Of course the alternative would be that you have visited the café but were not aware of it at the time due to the consumption of a few to many Phantom Flashers. Of course trying to voice your opinion as to which of these applies to you would be plagiarizing this fan fiction, so it'd probably be best if we simply continued with the story.

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David Anderson was not happy. His Fan Fiction, all twenty-two-million pages, had just vanished. The paper was still there, but due to an overwhelmingly large glitch in the English language, and the fact that Ben was bored, he suddenly discovered that the entire thing had been written in white ink. He stood up and held a page up to the light, relieved to find that the text appeared. Unfortunately he then bumped into a waiter, causing the waiter to spill the Silence of the Lamp Chops he had been carrying to Kathlyn, including its award-winning Black Beauty Horseradish sauce, all over David's manuscript. In an ironic twist later discovered by police investigators, his fan fiction had been titled "Bad Luck", and was based on the popular motion picture of the same name.

It was at this point that David took out a gun and shot himself. Fortunately it was a potato gun, but the large noised caused by its powerful ammo soon had police investigators there to investigate. However, due to an overwhelmingly large glitch in the English language, and the fact that Ben was no longer bored, David's manuscript was magically restored, the police investigators disappeared, and David suddenly had the urge to go home and get a good night's sleep, and to give the bartender a gracious tip on the way out.

Of course, even if David was now happy, despite suffering from a serious potato-related injury, Ben had to himself go and get another order of the Silence of the Lamp Chops. And then, it happened. Kathlyn had an idea. An idea so brilliant and complex in its ingenious design that it was worth the twenty-two years it had taken her to come up with it. In this state of happy enlightenment, she ceased to be oblivious to her current financial situation, and the depression this caused her caused her to forget all about the idea and try and come up with a good idea so that she could make some money. What was this ingenious idea? According to the Book, which due to an overwhelmingly large glitch in the English language must record every event that takes place in the café, the idea was for a movie, called Catwoman. The role would later be played by Halle Berry in a movie that has nothing to do whatsoever with Kathlyn's original idea, and so officially her great idea was lost forever. This is perhaps just as well, as the release of such an idea could trigger a premature apocalypse, or worse be the basis for a fan fiction someone might actually read.

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It was amid such boringly predictable events that Arthur Dent walked in, accompanied by three friends; a former Earth resident named Trillian, a friendly yet pathologically illogical alien from Betelgeuse named Ford Prefect, and a two-headed three-armed alien who by complete coincidence happened to be president of the galaxy, Zaphod Beetlebrox. Zaphod of course ordered a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the most potently alcoholic beverage in the universe, or, according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the best. Trillian and Ford both ordered Phantom Flashers (it is after all, what the Fan Fiction Café is known for) and Arthur ordered a glass of milk. He didn't actually plan to drink the milk, you see, but refusing to order a drink would have been quite impolite. Of course, whatever the odds may be of four fictional characters walking into a café that may or may not exist somewhere in either space or the greater Los Angeles Area, such useless calculations were completely obliterated by the one conscious man sitting at the bar- Douglas Adams. Now you might think that such aliens might find it strange to be in a café located on a planet that was, or at the very least will be, destroyed by Vogans. However, due to the obvious similarities between space and the greater Los Angeles Area, none of them noticed. Of course, three rounds later it didn't make the least amount of difference, and even Arthur was in somewhat or a drunken stupor, despite the fact that he had yet to touch his glass of milk. Arthur had of course struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to him, who was in his own right holding onto his consciousness as if he were holding it for someone who had just popped of to go to the bathroom and would soon be returning. Adams was of course terribly interested in the whole story, particularly the part about that rather remarkable book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which incidentally has this to say about Fan Fiction Stories: Fan Fictions are extremely long and usually unoriginal stories that are based on characters and places that have already been created. Writers will occasionally include their friends in Fan Fiction stories just so they can all have a good laugh and go out for tea afterwards.

In an unrelated and indeed completely unimportant side note, Adams later included his new-found friends in a fan fiction of his own, titled, unoriginally, as most fan fiction are, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Such blatant coincidences are commonplace, and indeed, mandatory at the Fan Fiction Café, lest the bartender become bored.

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There is a fairly large likelihood that the fact that there is and overwhelmingly large glitch in the English language has been mentioned. Those who speak English who are reading this story (in other words, everyone, since this story is in fact written in English) were probably up until this point unaware of this glitch. These same readers would therefore be most interested in hearing just what this glitch is. There is however a problem with this. You see, whenever there is a glitch in a language (the majority of which are in English), it is usually coupled with a lack of words to describe such a glitch in that language. So you see, the only people capable of identifying such a glitch and describing it would be someone who doesn't speak English. This is probably why many non-English speaking countries think we're idiots. So, the next time you are walking down the road (and do try not to get hit by a car, if you please) and spot someone who doesn't speak English, simply ask him or her to please describe with excruciating detail the overwhelmingly large glitch in the English language. Of course, they won't understand what you're saying, and will probably call you an idiot in their native language and stalk off, but this is a lovely way to get to know the local townspeople in a new city while on vacation. Of course, the evidence that proves the existence of such a glitch is mostly circumstantial, (which is of course the best kind of evidence) but due to another overwhelmingly large glitch in the English language, there are no words with which to properly disprove such a glitch. Fortunately there are at least sufficient words to laugh at the people who try.

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It has of course been and awfully long time since we checked in with Ben and Max. What on Earth (or space) have they been doing all this time? Well, Max wrote a book entitled 82,961 Reasons Why I Hate the DMC. The book (illustrated, of course) features the words "George Bush" repeated 82,960 times. It ends there because Max was unable to come up with any more reasons (or paper plates, for that matter.) Ben was, as usual, bored. More boring was this rather annoying problem with the book. Since the book is stored on a computer, the computer had this tendency, as all computers do, to freeze. When this happened, reality itself would come to a standstill, often for several minutes at a time. Ben, who didn't really give a damn about reality, did not freeze with it, and was very nearly forced to actually do some work until reality returned to normal. Reality, you may have noticed, has never and in all likelihood will never, be normal and this is why Ben continues to be gainfully employed by the café.

Most of all, however, Max and Ben would really prefer you mind your own business. The further history and past future of the café and its occupants must therefore be explained by way of further fan fictions of the café itself.

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A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The rather sudden ending of this story, as well as the quite purposefully and in some cases pathologically confusing language may have left you with some burning questions, which I will address. As far as I'm concerned, however, freezing questions are your won problem. Back to those burning questions, here are just a few:

Who is this Matt Blanc?

How did he come to own the café?

And where was he during all of this?

What is it with Max and politics?

Why is Ben always bored?

And finally, why do you use such big words all the time?

These questions will have to wait for their own stories however; I will not list them here. Further question may be left as reviews. There is no guarantee I will answer them, or indeed that I will even read them, but you may as well try.