Fic: Forget About Love
Title: “Forget About Love”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG
Summary: The Author fails at being the villain of his own story and learns that True Love is the force to be reckoned with. Spoilers up to 470 [semi-RPS, crack, implied KishiSasu, implied SasuNaru/NaruSasu, SakuNaru, HinaNaru] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Kishimoto Masashi obviously also belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Who Kishimoto Seishi belongs to is debatable, but probably to the S&M chick from Blazer Drive.
A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KISHI-SENSEI (AND KISHI-2)! Get off the pot, will you? XDDD This is dumb, inconsistent (like Kishi’s brain), not funny at all and is in no way meant to offend any of the shippers or the Kishi brothers.
FORGET ABOUT LOVE
Death, death, devil, devil, devil, devil, evil, evil, evil, evil songs.
Hell, you know that's how I get along.
(The world is full of tragedy) so how can it be wrong,
Singing death, death, death, death, devil, devil, evil, evil songs.
Voltaire. ‘Death Death’
I was under the impression I did a pretty good job with evil things. I mean, look at my villains. Three quarters of my readers would tell you that I’d created some really incredible bad guys. (Handmouths, anyone? Five hearts? Jashin!) That’s partly why they all had to die. Because when it comes to villainy, it’s very easy to screw things up. So I just killed them off before they started setting people’s teeth on edge. (Except for Nagato - he was just creepy.)
Anyhow, the point is that after the glorious slaughter-fest of my antagonists I ran out of bad guys. No bad guys, no conflicts, you know the drill. Of course Sasuke was still with me, but he was never truly evil (just misunderstood, mistreated, miserable, misled - and still exceedingly hot). On top of all, he had just been thrashed pretty hard at the Kage Summit, whereas I still needed to keep the story going.
“Are you sure about this?” Seishi asked me over the phone when I gave him a brief outline for the next couple of chapters. I could almost see him frowning and trying to make a pensive face which never really worked well on him.
“I’m positive. Besides, just imagine the pairing wars! That’ll be epic.”
“Well, if we get to see a bit of juicy girl-fighting… If you need help drawing believable bikini, just give me a call!”
…Eyeroll of Doom.
But it’s okay. Seishi does that. I’d be alarmed if he didn’t.
Light-heartedly, I sat down to draw the ‘name’ for the next chapter. Technically, I wasn’t doing anything ‘evil’, at least in its traditional sense. Okay, maybe it was somewhat evilish to provoke the fans by giving them two love confessions in a row, but I really needed to cut this colossus down, and without my misfortunate protagonist getting his happily-ever-after it was hardly possible. In other words, I was about to play matchmaker for the sake of us all: me, the manga, and the readers.
A few hours later the bomb was dropped, and I kicked back to watch some Pokemon (with a notepad and a pencil, of course, to put down grandiose ideas - as soon as I think up how to shove Pokemons into Naruto without being accused of plagiarizing, the world’s mine!). I must have dozed off because I snapped back to reality what seemed to be eternity after, to a re-run of some frightfully hysterical game show and my wife’s none too gentle nudging me towards the bed. I looked around for precaution. Oddly enough, the place was empty except for me and my wife.
(Hold your horses, old boy! So now you’re waiting for them to come? This spells ‘mental hospital’ all too clearly.)
Yet I couldn’t fight back the disappointment at not finding any of the visitors in the morning. Their story was about to end with a bang - and what was I getting from them? No. Reaction. At all.
My editor on the other hand was thrilled.
“Isn’t that kind of a little like, you know, betrayal?” he asked cautiously.
“…No,” I said, and from that moment on he was gushing ecstatically, “Finally-finally-finally!” still pretending that all those shounen-ai hints bothered him (I’ll be a darling and tactfully refrain from mentioning a collection of yaoi manga I found stashed in his apartment a long time ago).
Now that my latest idea had received one more big, fat stamp of approval, I allowed myself a contented smile and proceeded to hone my newfound romance-writing skills.
* * *
The first visitor showed up right after dinner. She dashed in, a flare of pink before my eyes and a fist crashing into my coffee table with a force of a dozen tsunamis.
“What the hell are you doing to me?!” she demanded fiercely.
I got up and took a few steps back, just to be safe. I cleared my throat and said cautiously: “Well, that depends-.”
“Don’t toy with me and my feelings!” she yelled. “You make me sound like I’m a bitch! Like I don’t know what I want!”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do!” She took a deep breath, willing herself to calm down, and went on icily: “A boyfriend who won’t reject me. He doesn’t reciprocate, can’t you see? The last thing I need is more people hating my guts! Do you have the faintest idea what it’s like to be the object of bashing in every second story that is written about you!? But that, I can deal with. I won’t let you make Naruto of all people hate me!”
Taken aback, I tried to apologize, to explain that I was just going for a little romance (and I wanted to keep Sasuke for myself, but she definitely didn’t need to know that). My poor attempts, however, caused a much worse reaction than I had hoped for.
“Romance!” she shrieked. “Since when do you-?” A realization hit her. A mask of shock upon her face, she rushed up to me and grasped the front of my shirt, glaring at me with suspicion. “You’re going to kill me!”
Okay - what!?
“Yes! That’s it! You’re going to kill me!” she pattered. “Every time there’s canon romance, somebody dies! Like Naruto’s parents, Asuma-sensei, Dan, even Jiraiya-sama! You can’t kill Naruto, so you’re going to off me!”
“I wasn’t going to kill anyone!” I protested heatedly. (On second thought, maybe I should.)
“I won’t let you do this!” she spurted, ignoring me. “I’ll fight! I’ll- I’ll find Sasuke-kun and make him confess his feelings for Naruto! Huh! See how you’ll deal with that!”
She laughed then (perfectly evil laughter, by the way; I should probably plan a Sakura-goes-dark spin-off) and headed out.
“How did you know where I live anyway?” I called after her.
“There’s a big neon sign above your house. It says, ASSHOLE!”
* * *
The second visitor was Sasuke. As always, he appeared virtually out of nowhere, noiseless as a cat, and lowered himself gracefully on top of my arm-chair’s armrest.
“Sakura is plotting against you,” I said nonchalantly.
“I know. And I know I have you to thank for it. I’ve just been felt up by Karin in some freaky alternative dimension - and I also have you to thank for it.”
Oh. I almost forgot I’d sent him there with her.
“I’m just trying to get it over with,” I grumbled. “I thought that maybe the story could use some romance.”
“Or maybe you’re just training to write the next Santa Barbara. What the story clearly needs right now is a wedding and a dozen of little Uzumakis.” He smirked, and for a moment he appeared to be rather angry. Despite my attempted change of policy, I beamed inwardly: the Ice Prince was still quite possessive of his unyielding pursuer. “Did you seriously think the moron would give up so easily? He’s out of your control now.”
I reached out and ended up closer to him, my shoulder almost pressed against his side, but I didn’t dare initiate the contact. His abilities may not have worked here, but he was still a shinobi, very much capable of tearing both my arms out if I did something to annoy him. (Other than breathe, that is. Lately, Sasuke was easily annoyed by everything.)
“I admit,” I murmured huskily, “I might have been a bit selfish when planning this storyline.”
He snorted grimly, but leaned into me, lips hovering a millimetre away from mine.
“You make a lousy villain,” he said. “Fortunately for both of us, there are ways in which you can compensate for your artistic blunders.”
At that, to my greatest aggravation, we were interrupted. A timid knock on the door sent me flying out of the arm-chair in a fit of panic (for all I knew, it could be my better half, and that sight was certainly not meant for her lovely eyes). Sasuke remained unperturbed. I cast him a pleading glance as I picked myself up from the floor and put my hand on the doorknob. He frowned slightly but rose and moved into a small niche between the wall and the bookcase.
The person that turned up behind the door was the third visitor. She looked up at me briefly with her milky-white eyes, thick blush spreading all over her face, and stammered out:
“Uhm… Author-sama… I just w-wanted t-to-.”
Uh-oh.
“I thought he was mine!” the girl went on in a suddenly strong, high-pitched voice. “He doesn’t even remember what I told him - and now Sakura-san goes and tells him the same thing! Why?”
I chewed on my lip. What could I tell her? That sometimes my imagination ran away with me? That I found a pretty lame way to wrap the story up? That I was acting like a crazy person, trying to get between two of my characters because I wanted one of them for myself? Oh yes, I could see this going so well.
I patted her shoulder gently. She almost jumped but continued drilling me with a hard look.
“Well, his memory does suck sometimes,” I mumbled. “I’m sure things will work out somehow.”
As soon as she left, I marched up to Sasuke, wearing the most menacing expression I could manage.
“Does everyone and their mother know where I live?”
He placed his palm flat against my chest and smiled darkly. “If you’re implying this is my doing, I’ll have to disappoint you. I have more important things in my life than giving everyone directions to your Citadel of Evil.” Before I could object to that (the Citadel of Evil was Jump’s office actually), he pushed me away firmly and stepped out of the niche. “I’m not sure you understand what’s going on, narrow-minded as you are. Cut your attempts to set this story straight before you will have done some irreversible damage.”
Such reaction from the person who claimed not to care about anything but his own goals surprised me. That was something I hadn’t taken into account: Sasuke’s own wishes. (Apparently I wasn’t getting any horizontal activity today. Bully for me.)
* * *
“Let me get this straight,” Seishi chattered over the phone. (I was beginning to hate the word ‘straight’.) “Your protagonist has had two hot chicks confess his love for him - and he kinda failed to hit it off with either of them because he is too dedicated to the guy who shoved his fist through his chest, left him to die and keeps running away from him for three years and, on top of all, is trying to wage war on the entire shinobi world? Sometimes, Masashi-nii-chan, I seriously doubt we’re related.”
I sighed. So much for my Evil Matchmaker strategy.
“So when do we get to see the epic gay showdown? With Naruto spouting all kinds of true love nonsense and Sasuke going all no-he-can’t-read-my-p-p-p-poker-face on him?”
“When you stop stealing my ideas.” FYI, that translates as ‘never’. “I was thinking I’d keep this up for a while. The plot’s only just begun to develop after all.”
The sound of head meeting desk that hit my ear just than was the sweetest music, and I thought with satisfaction that I had finally managed to do something villainous after all.
November 7-8, 2009
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG
Summary: The Author fails at being the villain of his own story and learns that True Love is the force to be reckoned with. Spoilers up to 470 [semi-RPS, crack, implied KishiSasu, implied SasuNaru/NaruSasu, SakuNaru, HinaNaru] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Kishimoto Masashi obviously also belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Who Kishimoto Seishi belongs to is debatable, but probably to the S&M chick from Blazer Drive.
A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KISHI-SENSEI (AND KISHI-2)! Get off the pot, will you? XDDD This is dumb, inconsistent (like Kishi’s brain), not funny at all and is in no way meant to offend any of the shippers or the Kishi brothers.
FORGET ABOUT LOVE
Death, death, devil, devil, devil, devil, evil, evil, evil, evil songs.
Hell, you know that's how I get along.
(The world is full of tragedy) so how can it be wrong,
Singing death, death, death, death, devil, devil, evil, evil songs.
Voltaire. ‘Death Death’
I was under the impression I did a pretty good job with evil things. I mean, look at my villains. Three quarters of my readers would tell you that I’d created some really incredible bad guys. (Handmouths, anyone? Five hearts? Jashin!) That’s partly why they all had to die. Because when it comes to villainy, it’s very easy to screw things up. So I just killed them off before they started setting people’s teeth on edge. (Except for Nagato - he was just creepy.)
Anyhow, the point is that after the glorious slaughter-fest of my antagonists I ran out of bad guys. No bad guys, no conflicts, you know the drill. Of course Sasuke was still with me, but he was never truly evil (just misunderstood, mistreated, miserable, misled - and still exceedingly hot). On top of all, he had just been thrashed pretty hard at the Kage Summit, whereas I still needed to keep the story going.
“Are you sure about this?” Seishi asked me over the phone when I gave him a brief outline for the next couple of chapters. I could almost see him frowning and trying to make a pensive face which never really worked well on him.
“I’m positive. Besides, just imagine the pairing wars! That’ll be epic.”
“Well, if we get to see a bit of juicy girl-fighting… If you need help drawing believable bikini, just give me a call!”
…Eyeroll of Doom.
But it’s okay. Seishi does that. I’d be alarmed if he didn’t.
Light-heartedly, I sat down to draw the ‘name’ for the next chapter. Technically, I wasn’t doing anything ‘evil’, at least in its traditional sense. Okay, maybe it was somewhat evilish to provoke the fans by giving them two love confessions in a row, but I really needed to cut this colossus down, and without my misfortunate protagonist getting his happily-ever-after it was hardly possible. In other words, I was about to play matchmaker for the sake of us all: me, the manga, and the readers.
A few hours later the bomb was dropped, and I kicked back to watch some Pokemon (with a notepad and a pencil, of course, to put down grandiose ideas - as soon as I think up how to shove Pokemons into Naruto without being accused of plagiarizing, the world’s mine!). I must have dozed off because I snapped back to reality what seemed to be eternity after, to a re-run of some frightfully hysterical game show and my wife’s none too gentle nudging me towards the bed. I looked around for precaution. Oddly enough, the place was empty except for me and my wife.
(Hold your horses, old boy! So now you’re waiting for them to come? This spells ‘mental hospital’ all too clearly.)
Yet I couldn’t fight back the disappointment at not finding any of the visitors in the morning. Their story was about to end with a bang - and what was I getting from them? No. Reaction. At all.
My editor on the other hand was thrilled.
“Isn’t that kind of a little like, you know, betrayal?” he asked cautiously.
“…No,” I said, and from that moment on he was gushing ecstatically, “Finally-finally-finally!” still pretending that all those shounen-ai hints bothered him (I’ll be a darling and tactfully refrain from mentioning a collection of yaoi manga I found stashed in his apartment a long time ago).
Now that my latest idea had received one more big, fat stamp of approval, I allowed myself a contented smile and proceeded to hone my newfound romance-writing skills.
* * *
The first visitor showed up right after dinner. She dashed in, a flare of pink before my eyes and a fist crashing into my coffee table with a force of a dozen tsunamis.
“What the hell are you doing to me?!” she demanded fiercely.
I got up and took a few steps back, just to be safe. I cleared my throat and said cautiously: “Well, that depends-.”
“Don’t toy with me and my feelings!” she yelled. “You make me sound like I’m a bitch! Like I don’t know what I want!”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do!” She took a deep breath, willing herself to calm down, and went on icily: “A boyfriend who won’t reject me. He doesn’t reciprocate, can’t you see? The last thing I need is more people hating my guts! Do you have the faintest idea what it’s like to be the object of bashing in every second story that is written about you!? But that, I can deal with. I won’t let you make Naruto of all people hate me!”
Taken aback, I tried to apologize, to explain that I was just going for a little romance (and I wanted to keep Sasuke for myself, but she definitely didn’t need to know that). My poor attempts, however, caused a much worse reaction than I had hoped for.
“Romance!” she shrieked. “Since when do you-?” A realization hit her. A mask of shock upon her face, she rushed up to me and grasped the front of my shirt, glaring at me with suspicion. “You’re going to kill me!”
Okay - what!?
“Yes! That’s it! You’re going to kill me!” she pattered. “Every time there’s canon romance, somebody dies! Like Naruto’s parents, Asuma-sensei, Dan, even Jiraiya-sama! You can’t kill Naruto, so you’re going to off me!”
“I wasn’t going to kill anyone!” I protested heatedly. (On second thought, maybe I should.)
“I won’t let you do this!” she spurted, ignoring me. “I’ll fight! I’ll- I’ll find Sasuke-kun and make him confess his feelings for Naruto! Huh! See how you’ll deal with that!”
She laughed then (perfectly evil laughter, by the way; I should probably plan a Sakura-goes-dark spin-off) and headed out.
“How did you know where I live anyway?” I called after her.
“There’s a big neon sign above your house. It says, ASSHOLE!”
* * *
The second visitor was Sasuke. As always, he appeared virtually out of nowhere, noiseless as a cat, and lowered himself gracefully on top of my arm-chair’s armrest.
“Sakura is plotting against you,” I said nonchalantly.
“I know. And I know I have you to thank for it. I’ve just been felt up by Karin in some freaky alternative dimension - and I also have you to thank for it.”
Oh. I almost forgot I’d sent him there with her.
“I’m just trying to get it over with,” I grumbled. “I thought that maybe the story could use some romance.”
“Or maybe you’re just training to write the next Santa Barbara. What the story clearly needs right now is a wedding and a dozen of little Uzumakis.” He smirked, and for a moment he appeared to be rather angry. Despite my attempted change of policy, I beamed inwardly: the Ice Prince was still quite possessive of his unyielding pursuer. “Did you seriously think the moron would give up so easily? He’s out of your control now.”
I reached out and ended up closer to him, my shoulder almost pressed against his side, but I didn’t dare initiate the contact. His abilities may not have worked here, but he was still a shinobi, very much capable of tearing both my arms out if I did something to annoy him. (Other than breathe, that is. Lately, Sasuke was easily annoyed by everything.)
“I admit,” I murmured huskily, “I might have been a bit selfish when planning this storyline.”
He snorted grimly, but leaned into me, lips hovering a millimetre away from mine.
“You make a lousy villain,” he said. “Fortunately for both of us, there are ways in which you can compensate for your artistic blunders.”
At that, to my greatest aggravation, we were interrupted. A timid knock on the door sent me flying out of the arm-chair in a fit of panic (for all I knew, it could be my better half, and that sight was certainly not meant for her lovely eyes). Sasuke remained unperturbed. I cast him a pleading glance as I picked myself up from the floor and put my hand on the doorknob. He frowned slightly but rose and moved into a small niche between the wall and the bookcase.
The person that turned up behind the door was the third visitor. She looked up at me briefly with her milky-white eyes, thick blush spreading all over her face, and stammered out:
“Uhm… Author-sama… I just w-wanted t-to-.”
Uh-oh.
“I thought he was mine!” the girl went on in a suddenly strong, high-pitched voice. “He doesn’t even remember what I told him - and now Sakura-san goes and tells him the same thing! Why?”
I chewed on my lip. What could I tell her? That sometimes my imagination ran away with me? That I found a pretty lame way to wrap the story up? That I was acting like a crazy person, trying to get between two of my characters because I wanted one of them for myself? Oh yes, I could see this going so well.
I patted her shoulder gently. She almost jumped but continued drilling me with a hard look.
“Well, his memory does suck sometimes,” I mumbled. “I’m sure things will work out somehow.”
As soon as she left, I marched up to Sasuke, wearing the most menacing expression I could manage.
“Does everyone and their mother know where I live?”
He placed his palm flat against my chest and smiled darkly. “If you’re implying this is my doing, I’ll have to disappoint you. I have more important things in my life than giving everyone directions to your Citadel of Evil.” Before I could object to that (the Citadel of Evil was Jump’s office actually), he pushed me away firmly and stepped out of the niche. “I’m not sure you understand what’s going on, narrow-minded as you are. Cut your attempts to set this story straight before you will have done some irreversible damage.”
Such reaction from the person who claimed not to care about anything but his own goals surprised me. That was something I hadn’t taken into account: Sasuke’s own wishes. (Apparently I wasn’t getting any horizontal activity today. Bully for me.)
* * *
“Let me get this straight,” Seishi chattered over the phone. (I was beginning to hate the word ‘straight’.) “Your protagonist has had two hot chicks confess his love for him - and he kinda failed to hit it off with either of them because he is too dedicated to the guy who shoved his fist through his chest, left him to die and keeps running away from him for three years and, on top of all, is trying to wage war on the entire shinobi world? Sometimes, Masashi-nii-chan, I seriously doubt we’re related.”
I sighed. So much for my Evil Matchmaker strategy.
“So when do we get to see the epic gay showdown? With Naruto spouting all kinds of true love nonsense and Sasuke going all no-he-can’t-read-my-p-p-p-poker-face on him?”
“When you stop stealing my ideas.” FYI, that translates as ‘never’. “I was thinking I’d keep this up for a while. The plot’s only just begun to develop after all.”
The sound of head meeting desk that hit my ear just than was the sweetest music, and I thought with satisfaction that I had finally managed to do something villainous after all.
November 7-8, 2009