lavanya_six | Abandoned Fic -- On Abusing TV Tropes (Reply)

Good Lord. I just found this while searching my files for another incomplete fic that I wanted to work on. I think I wrote this when I was still in love with the TV Tropes wiki. Thank God I never finished it; I'm embarrassed to read it now.

I do still like Maya's one-liner, though.

Summary: When Shinji explains the clichés of mecha anime to Asuka, everyone's favorite German genius comes to shocking realization that she's a fictional character. Too bad nobody believes her. (Humor/Parody)

MEDIA STUDIES

Written by: Lavanya Six

(please don't sue)

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"Gundam."

"What's a Gundam?"

Shinji glanced at his roommate. "You're serious?"

"I'm not from Japan, dumbass. Remember?"

"Oh.

"I went to university, baka. I studied this stuff."

"You know," said Shinji, frowning as he searched his memory, "I don't think you've ever told me what you got your degree in."

"Media Studies," she explained. "I did my thesis on children's programming. I also did a minor in Literary Theory." She shot an accusatory finger at the TV. "So don't change the channel. I want to see what perverted, damnfool things you Japanese show to children."

"Why?"

"Because I'm curious. Because if I have to watch another one of your people's crazy game shows about office ladies racing to the bottom of swimming pools filled with Jell-o in a race so see who can collect the most baseballs… I'll go insane. But mostly because I had to do chores today so it's only fair that I get the remote tonight."

"Sometimes they collect hot dogs instead."

"Cartoons! Now!"

With the easy franticness of a long-suffering male, Shinji rapidly surfed through the five hundred channels on Misato's satellite dish and stopped at the first animated thing he saw: a rerun of the original Mobile Suit Gundam.

Asuka stared at the TV for several seconds, soaking in the sight of giant robots slugging it out with other giant robots, then said, "What the hell is this shit?"

"It's Gundam."

"What?"

"It's a mecha."

"What the hell's a mecha?"

"It's this genre in anime," explained Shinji. "It used to be super-big before the Second Impact, back when people had money to spend making that sorta stuff. It's pretty repetitive. Y'know, teens fighting in giant robots to save the world. I used to watch a lot of it when I was a kid."

Asuka blinked. "Like us?"

"Huh? Oh…I suppose. Never really thought of it like that."

"It is kind of strange, isn't it? Know anything else about this mecha crap?"

"Well," said the Third Child, "there's always this kid whose father built this mecha and he needs his son to pilot it in some last-ditch battle to save the Earth. Usually the kid is the best there is at piloting the mecha even though there are other people with years of experience on him. There's usually some kind of young twenty-something woman running the home base. Mostly it's so they have someone to do fanservice because it's kinda skuzzy to show the kids getting naked." Shinji sipped his soda. "It was original forty years ago but after that it was all about people doing riffs on the same story. It's all pretty clichéd."

When Asuka didn't say anything, Shinji glanced over to see if the redhead had just lost interest. She had not, though she did look terribly confused. Confused and a little upset, but then again, he mused, wasn't Asuka always upset?

"Are you trying to be funny?" she said, her voice sharp.

Shinji was at a loss. "I-I'm not doing anything, Asuka. You asked me what these shows were like and I told you."

"You do realize you just described your own life?"

"Huh?"

Asuka started counting off on her fingers. "Your father spent years building a super robot. You, who were sent away for years, get the call one day to show up and pilot a robot in a fight to save humanity. Despite no training, no confidence, and an utter lack of balls—"

"HEY!"

"—you manage to not get yourself killed in your first battle. In fact, you set a record when you first synched with Unit-01 despite never having heard of it before. And Misato, who can't walk out the door not showing enough skin to get herself stoned to death in most Middle Eastern countries, is our commanding officer." She looked up from the tangle of fingers. "Doesn't that seem a little... odd?"

"No, not really."

"What are you, stupid?!"

"Asuka," he started, as if he were speaking to a slow child, "that's an anime. This is real life."

"I know that, dummkopf! But you're telling me you don't see even the slightest similarity between your life and the plot of Gundum?"

"Honestly? No."

Asuka closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she was done the urge to kill had lessened. "Whatever. I suppose you're going to tell me there's always another pilot who's better than the hero and the two have a rivalry."

"Hey! How'd you know that? You said you'd never watched anime before."

There was an explosion of color onscreen.

"Christ," she swore at the TV. "Who's that?"

"That's the hot shot gaijin ace. He's a rival to the main character."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Asuka said, "Do I have to pull out my Venn diagram out again?"

Touji leered. "That sounds hot."

"It's not," said Shinji. "Honestly, it's the opposite of hot."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Asuka toggled the next PowerPoint slide. "As you can see in Columns A and B, I've listed our corresponding personality attributes."

The slide in question went something like this:

Short hair - Long hair

Passive - Aggressive

Chaste - Sexual

Emotionless - Very emotional

Introverted - Extroverted

Stereotypical Japanese - Raging Gajin

"As this slide clearly shows, we're complete opposites of each other. I mean, even our color schemes are opposite of each other's!" She toggled the next slide. The NERV personnel file photos of Asuka and Rei came up on the screen. Sure enough, the red-haired blue-eyed Asuka smiled opposite the neutral-looking blue-haired red-eyed Rei. "Now, ordinarily you might be able to pass this off as just being one of those quirks of life, but further investigation reveals an alarming truth."

"See, within the anime genre of mecha, there are usually two types of female protagonists: the Tsundere and the Emotionless Girl.

"The Tsundere is a girl who runs hot and cold. She uses her aggressiveness to keep others away and protect herself emotionally. As loathe as I am to admit it, I'm forced to conclude that this sums me up pretty neatly. Further, if the Tsundere isn't a love interest to the main character – who in this scenario I believe would be Shinji (God help us all) – then she acts as The Rival to the main hero.

"The Emotionless Girl, meanwhile, is very stoic and doesn’t express herself much. In essence, she's a robot. The Emotionless Girl is also considered the far more popular character in Japan because it fits with the docile image of women you people like. I mean," Asuka gestured to Rei, "just look at yourself! You're SO the Emotionless Girl!

"Putting aside the chauvinism of you Japanese, how do you explain how we mirror one another so perfectly? I mean, we're practically the living embodiments of these media tropes!"

"I fail to see the point of this, Pilot Soryu."

"Oh no! They got to you too!"

"You fools!" she shouted at the classroom. "Don't you understand?! We're just living out fictional lives in a deconstructed mecha anime! And one with dodgy use of Christian symbolism to boot!"

Someone one in the back yelled out, "Show us your boobs!"

Everyone laughed.

Asuka restrained her customary retort. She wouldn't be defined by the genre conventions of a cartoon anymore, deconstructed or otherwise. "Fine. I'll prove it you all."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The raven-haired, blue-eyed girl walked up to him.

"ASUKA?!"

"Took you long enough, ba… Shinji."

"Young lady, first thing tomorrow morning we are taking you back to the salon and getting you looking normal!"

"No!" Asuka flailed against Misato's tugging. "If I was to be a dark-haired bisexual schoolgirl in bellbottoms with an ear for electronica and a penchant for giving hugs to people than I damn well will be!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The trio shared a laugh.

Maya sipped her coffee. "But y'know, now that I think about, I don't think I know anything about Shigeru here other than he plays guitar and is cynical."

Shigeru gave his fellow bridge bunny a dirty look. "Maybe you should ask me about my life more instead of going on and on about your Sempai."

"Hey now," said Makoto Hyuga, "let's play nice. We're professionals."

The long-haired guitarist tacked on, "Besides, there's more to me than guitar and cynicism."

The three sipped their coffees.

"Like what?" asked Maya.

"I thought we were through with this ridiculous conversation."

"No. You said there was more to you than what I thought. So tell me more about yourself."

Makoto smiled. "Come on, buddy. Just tell her how… uh… how you…er." He frowned. "Uh, tell her something."

"Not you too!"

"I'm having a brain freeze, okay?!"

"Well, for one I… uh… I shout – It's out of control! – a lot!"

The two other bridge bunnies glanced at each other. Shigeru Aoba sputtered, "Damn it, I'm a human being! I don't know why I can't think of examples, but there's definitely more to me than what you know! I mean, just ask my parents!"

Maya asked, "What are their names?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Aoba."

"No, no. Their real names."

"…"

"You have no idea, do you?"

"I have subtext!" shouted Lt. Ibuki. "Lesbian subtext!"

"Face it: our existence is a deterministic reality inexorably head for a crappy turn of events. It's a moral void where rules of conduct are determined by the most dramatic psycho-sexual impulse with the occasional break for comedy."

"Are you even listening to yourself? That doesn't make any sense at all!"

"So?!" cried Shigeru. "It's not like whoever created us did all their research either! Everyone here is like something you'd read out of textbook on Freud. A poorly translated textbook originally written by an illiterate who audited a few psyche classes when he wasn't stoned out of his gourd!"

The protesters carried signs. "RE-construct Not DE-construct" "Stock Characters Bleed Too" "Loads of Subtext!" "Derrida can suck my balls!"