Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Oneshot thread)

[Mirage_GSM]

It's called "understatement" or maybe even "sarcasm"

[sgtpepper]

Relax, it's a story on the internet about some anime girl. While there is certainly a time and place to be serious when writing, I think throwing in a (single line in the fic, mind you) joke is alright. I didn't feel "pressured" or anything to use the meme, I just thought it'd be a very Miki-way to end that part of the fic. Oh well.

[Mirage_GSM]

Relax, it's a story on the internet about some anime girl.

Of course, but without that it could have been a better story on the internet about some anime girl

[Hanako Fancopter]

Better to you

Me I say, don't let your memes be dreams

Also if you call a meme tired or unfunny or forced you only give it more power

[Scroff]

I just thought it'd be a very Miki-way to end that part of the fic

That was my take-away from what you wrote, showing that she's not completely comfortable with receiving and expressing affection

[Mirage_GSM]

Also if you call a meme tired or unfunny or forced you only give it more power

This one you have to explain to me:
The only reason to include tired and unfunny memes would be to annoy readers. That is something that may be a valid strategy on reddit or 4chan, but when your goal is to write an engaging story that readers can enjoy, ususally you would expect authors to avoid it.

Better to you

Me I say, don't let your memes be dreams

There are several objective reasons why relying on memes makes a story worse. Many of them can be found or at least inferred from the Tips for Fanfiction writers thread, and you can't read that one often enough apparently, so here are just the two most important ones:
1. They show a lack of originality. The author obviously didn't have any funny ideas of their own, so they had to reuse old ones.
2. They destroy immersion in the story. Everytime a reader sees a meme they've already seen in other - probably better - stories they are reminded that the piece of fiction they are reading right now is just derived from something else.

[Hanako Fancopter]

There's not really any such thing as an "objectively" better or worse story when it comes to content (as opposed to spelling/grammar which does have hard rules), or at the very least there's a hell of a lot of wiggle room. There's certainly nothing "objective" in whether one is amused by memes or not. You can't call someone's sense of humor, much as it might differ from your own, "objectively wrong"

If we're really putting on the big brained super deep think writegood hat, it would be better to give people actual feedback on plot, characterization, style, etc., rather than nitpick at them over a single throwaway joke line

Maybe I should add that one to the Tips for Fanfiction writers thread

[Mirage_GSM]

Call it "commonly agreed on" then if you don't like "objectively". Objectively doesn't mean that every last person on the planet has to agree with you or you couldn't claim that vaccines do objectively work either... (Yes, there is more "wiggle room" in how people experience stories than in how vaccines work, but those rules of good writing were made for a reason, too.)

As for people maybe finding it funny, I never claimed that wasn't the case. I listed two of the major downsides of relying on memes when writing a story. If an author accepts those for the giggles they are free to do so, but they shouldn't complain if they're called out on it.

Regarding plot... Well, there isn't much of that to comment on here, is it? Hisao and Miki get locked in the library, talk for a bit, go to sleep and Yuuko lets them out in the morning. There's not really much of any conflict or resolution, nor would I expect any in a story of less than 1K words.

If I had to find something to comment on it would be that the story came out just a few days after another story about two different characters being locked in the library - that one did have some conflict, despite not being much longer - which does not really help the argument that the story is not derivative.

[sgtpepper]

Greetings

I have decided to revise the fic in light of recent events. Here is the revised passage.

"I love you, Miki"

It was then I realized the girl I was snuggling wasn't Miki, it was a 7 story tall monster from the paleolithic era. I said

"Loch Ness monster, what you want?"

He said

"Open the door, get on the floor, everybody walk the dinosaur"

The End

this fic is dedicated to Mirage, for without him I wouldn't have known where to take this fic. <3

I hope you're all happy with my revision

[Oddball]

Now you're just being stupid.

[Hanako Fancopter]

Call it "commonly agreed on" then if you don't like "objectively". Objectively doesn't mean that every last person on the planet has to agree with you or you couldn't claim that vaccines do objectively work either... (Yes, there is more "wiggle room" in how people experience stories than in how vaccines work, but those rules of good writing were made for a reason, too.)

As for people maybe finding it funny, I never claimed that wasn't the case. I listed two of the major downsides of relying on memes when writing a story. If an author accepts those for the giggles they are free to do so, but they shouldn't complain if they're called out on it.

Regarding plot... Well, there isn't much of that to comment on here, is it? Hisao and Miki get locked in the library, talk for a bit, go to sleep and Yuuko lets them out in the morning. There's not really much of any conflict or resolution, nor would I expect any in a story of less than 1K words.

If I had to find something to comment on it would be that the story came out just a few days after another story about two different characters being locked in the library - that one did have some conflict, despite not being much longer - which does not really help the argument that the story is not derivative.

Fair points.

[sgtpepper]

If I had to find something to comment on it would be that the story came out just a few days after another story about two different characters being locked in the library - that one did have some conflict, despite not being much longer - which does not really help the argument that the story is not derivative.

Both stories were written for a contest on one of the discord servers. We were meant to choose a pairing, a scenario, or a location from a randomly generated list. Fancopter and I just happened to choose the same scenario from the limited list of possible ones. I didn't know about his story, nor that he chose the same scenario as me. You can view the generator if you want here.

Now

If you really thought I was plagerizing, why wouldn't you, perhaps, privately mention it to me? It seems kind of rude to me to publically accuse me, even if you thought you were right. I accept that my fic is mediocre and I accept your criticism of my word choice, but I think you shouldn't have ventured beyond that, at least publically.

That is all. I don't want this to be a huge, hairy ordeal, I just wanted to make that clear.

[Mirage_GSM]

If I had to find something to comment on it would be that the story came out just a few days after another story about two different characters being locked in the library - that one did have some conflict, despite not being much longer - which does not really help the argument that the story is not derivative.

If you really thought I was plagerizing, why wouldn't you, perhaps, privately mention it to me? It seems kind of rude to me to publically accuse me, even if you thought you were right. I accept that my fic is mediocre and I accept your criticism of my word choice, but I think you shouldn't have ventured beyond that, at least publically.

That is all. I don't want this to be a huge, hairy ordeal, I just wanted to make that clear.

That's because I did not think of it as plagiarization even without knowing about the generator. Both stories are using a similar premise but they are completely different beyond that.
Also, I did not expect my comment to be taken as an accusation of plagiarization, and I'm honestly sorry if it was.
I'm certain if any plagiarization had been intended you would not have posted the story on the same forum within a few days of the first one.
As I said I was not aware of the generator, so to me it seemed as if your story was inspired by another - which would not have been original but also not grounds for any accusations. Authors inspire each other all the time.

[sgtpepper]

The following post was written in response to Stiles Long's writing contest. Each participant was given a list of KS character pairings and a list of locations. One of each was chosen for this fic.

There were a limited set of options available to participants in the contest and it may be that this fic resembles others. Any such resemblance is coincidental.

I went up to Hisao's door and began pounding on it. I learned a long time ago that being timid when trying to get someone's attention defeated the purpose, and if it took a sore fist and and some annoyance on their part, that's just what it took.

Sure enough, after a few moments he opened the door, looking at me immediately. It seems like I'm the only person in this school who goes banging on his door like this, so that's to be expected. He opened his mouth to speak, but noticed that Misha wasn't with me. Staring at the empty space beside me, he flushed and slowly closed his mouth, raising his arms to sign instead. He's so worried about accidentally offending people here it's almost insulting in and of itself. I began signing.

["Misha's waiting for you. She says you're going to have a 'study session'."] I raised my eyebrow at the end of the sentence, internally smirking when he blushed even harder. He seemed to raise one balled fist up to his mouth and give a cough, before responding, ["Okay, thanks. Why did she send you over here, though? To laugh at me?"]

Despite his accusation, I felt myself give a little chuckle, before responding, ["No, you blushing when I said that was funny enough."] He blushed even harder. I continued. ["Seriously, though, I have business with your hallmate. Setou?"]

He grimaced upon hearing that. I began again. ["What?"]

He raised his arms, but didn't start signing immediately, hesitating.

["...You should've sent me to deal with Kenji. He can be... interesting."] I noticed he wasn't talking out loud anymore in addition to his signing. Undeterred, I began signing.

["Interesting people are what make life worth living, Hisao. Either way, Misha's waiting for you."]

["O-Oh, right. Thanks, I'll see you later."] He stepped out, closed his door, and walked down the hallway.

Not giving any more thought to Hisao's warning, I turned on my heels and pounded on the door opposite to his. He took a lot longer to answer the door, which gave me time to pull out my pre-written note.

The door opened and a guy with short, messy black hair and thick glasses popped his head out. I saw him mouth what looked like a "Hisao?" Before I could respond, however, he suddenly stuck his head out even further, nearly headbutting me. Reflex kicked in, and I slapped him hard across the face. He instantly recoiled, giving what looked like a scream before slamming the door.

I was about to knock again when I felt something at my feet. Looking down, I saw he'd passed a note under the door. It took me a second to make out his shaky handwriting on what looked like part of a pizza box, but I realized it said -

"You'll never take me alive!"

God, is this guy on some medication? Maybe Hisao was right. I took my pen and wrote something under it.

"What do you think you're doing?"

I slid it back under the door. A moment later, it came back with more chicken-scratch on it.

"God, I knew something like this would happen. They all made fun of me, but now who's laughing!"

I was honestly more confused than angry at this point. I wrote back.

"I've received multiple complaints from various students about you. I'm starting to understand why."

I slid it back under the door, smirking at my own insult. He took a little while longer to respond.

"Shit, did Class Rep snitch on me? I knew it! You can't blindly trust people like her."

I actually had to stop myself from giggling, there. At least he had an admirable point of view on Lilly, wether that pun was intentional or not. Regardless, I had to maintain my authority, and wrote back, "Give me one reason I shouldn't forward these complaints to the headmaster and get you thrown out."

The response is much quicker than the previous ones.

"I'm already 37 moves ahead of you! I've got Mediterranian Avenue fortified with 3 hotels, you'll never bankrupt me!!!"

Either that's a Monopoly reference or a really strange foreign metaphor. Perhaps I have some leverage here. I try to make my response match the same tone as my earlier responses, but steer the "conversation" to this new point.

"But if I roll a high enough number, I'll just skip that space, meaning you would lose." I underline the "lose" for added emphasis.

I slide it back under the door, but it comes back almost instantly. He's writing in all capitals now.

"NOT FUCKING LIKELY! LIKE I'D EVER LOSE TO SOME Y-CHROMOSOME-LESS FEMINIST!"

This is getting interesting. I realize I can't do anything if he won't leave his clearly fortified room, so I'll have to get creative if I want to do anything else.

"Fine, then let's play a game. If you beat me, I'll 'lose the paperwork' relating to your complaints. However, if you lose, you'll be thrown out so quickly your head will spin."

The makeshift paper is slid under the door once more, and it comes back with a single word on it. "Fine."

I smirk as I read it. Gotcha. I write my instructions.

"8pm. Tomorrow. My room. Ask Nakai if you don't know where that is. I choose the game. If you don't show up, you're done for. Goodbye."

I slide the paper under the door one more time, then stand up. Smoothing my skirt out, I take my leave.

Shizune Hakamichi, you brilliant woman.




The next day passes without much fanfare. Misha though the idea was hilarious. Hisao, significantly less so, especially when I told him about the rules I'd set.

["So what's the plan if he, like, climbs in your window with a chloroform bottle?"]

["Be serious."]

Hisao looked at me with the most deadpan expression in his library of deadpan expressions. ["I am. That guy's seriously not all there, and it seems like you really pushed his buttons last night. And to top it off, he absolutely HATES women."]

I rolled my eyes. ["Whatever. You and Misha will be right next door, right? If you hear any sounds of a struggle from my room, you know things have gone south."]

He waved my implications off, signing, ["Right, whatever. What're you going to make him play?"]

["I have a few ideas. What's he like?"]

["I try and keep my distance from him, for obvious reasons. I think he's into strategy and all that stuff, though."]

Misha butted in. ["Ooh! You could make him play Risk, Shicchan!"]

I responded, ["Too easy. Plus, I don't want to play something he's good at, I want to play something that he's going to lose."]

["Oh. Right! Hmm, rock-paper-scissors?"]




It's about 7:30 now, and I've had a shower and cleaned up my dorm. Not that it needed much cleaning anyways - not like Misha's, where her floor has a second layer of dirty panties and stuffed animals on top of the carpet.

Speaking of which, Hisao should be over there with her right now. It's not something that really bothers me, more something that just piqued my curiosity. I was certainly a little uncomfortable at first, but deep down I think they're good for each other. He's certainly good for Misha if nothing else. Not that they'd ever hear that from me, though, for more reasons than me just wanting to arrogantly save face.

My train of thought was broken when a piece of paper slid under the door.

"Let me in."

I recognized the scrawled handwriting as Setou's. So, he showed up after all. Not like he had much of a choice, though. I open the door and gave him the once-over out of curiosity. He'd slammed the door so quickly last night that I hadn't had a chance to examine him, but I didn't miss much. He just looked like Hisao with glasses and a scarf.

He pushed past me into my room, flopping down on the floor without any further ado. Okay, now he was starting to remind me of my father with glasses and a scarf on. Surprisingly, after our encounter last night, he seemed totally calm, even smiling. He noticed the pen and pad I'd laid out for him, and he wrote something.

"What are we playing?"

I smirked. I'd thought long and hard about what game I would make him play, but I ended up deciding on the one he'd mentioned the night before. I confidently strode over to my closet and pulled the box out, ready for the big reveal. I took the box out, dropped it on the floor, and picked up the pad. After writing one word, I held it out for him and watched him read what I'd written.

"Monopoly."




Playing Monopoly without being able to immediately communicate isn't too hard, actually. Monopoly isn't a very verbal game anyways, though Misha got pretty excited last time we played. The game had gotten off to a good start - Kenji seemed to be buying everything he landed on, and he was running a little low on cash. I, on the other hand, employed my usual strategy of calculating the chances of him landing on a certain spot - and buying any with a higher probability. I still had a healthy cash stack. I had to stop myself from smirking as I kept handing him worthless property cards - he'd even gone for some of the brown properties near "GO". Hisao was correct - logical games were not this guy's forte.

He paused after I'd had my turn and stared off into the distance. Part of me was expecting him to flip the board over in rage, but instead he reached for the pad and paper.

"Doesn't that bother you?"

What is he talking about? I looked around the room, before writing back.

"Doesn't what bother me?"

"That sound."

"I'm deaf."

"I know that, but can't you feel the vibrations or some shit? It sounds like two leaf blowers trying to suck each other in."

I brought a hand to my mouth, giving a silent giggle at his description despite his abrasive tone and disregard. "No. That's probably just Hisao and Misha. You're not the only one in this building who gets complaints directed towards them."

Judging by what Hisao had said earlier, I was expecting his eyes to bug out when he read that Hisao was with Misha. Surprisingly, though, he calmly wrote back, "Oh. Doesn't that bother you?"

"I already said it didn't."

"Not the sound. What them making that sound means."

I paused. Funny, it's almost like he'd known what I was thinking about earlier. I was beginning to feel a little more wary of him - from what I'd seen and what I'd been told, he was acting completely out of character.

"No. Not really. They're good for each other."

I probably said more than I should've there, but I know even if Kenji did tell Hisao, he probably wouldn't believe him.

"I see."

He laid the pad down and picked up the dice. I instead picked the pad back up and kept writing.

"You're acting surprisingly calm and mature about this. Weren't you going off last night about 'y-chromosome-less feminists'?"

He paused after reading it, twirling the pen around in his fingers.

"Well, yeah. I can be a little psychotic sometimes, but I'm not a total asshole. I can kind of understand relationships like that, even if my own experience is slightly skewed."

"I see. From what Hisao told me, I think he assumes you're some woman-hating conspiracy theorist."

He paused even longer after reading that. His face took on an unreadable expression, somewhere in between amusement and concern. He wrote.

"Honestly, I just say those things to mess with boring people. It's funny to see their eyes bug out and have them look at you worriedly when they think you're dead serious about the most random bullshit."

That... makes sense, I guess. It's even a little admirable, in a weird, anti-establishment way. Something still doesn't make sense, though.

"So are you saying I'm boring? When I confronted you last night?"

His response is much quicker.

"You're not, but your way of doing things are."

Touche. He's smirking, clearly proud of his own quip.

I pause, tapping the pen against my palm before writing, "That's pretty fucked up to do that to people."

"You clearly get off by having control over other people, so I say we're pretty even."

Huh. He's even a little more observant than I would've thought. Perhaps there's something here I hadn't noticed earlier.

"You've got me there. Okay, make your move."




This is not good. What looked like a cut and dry Monopoly match has taken a turn for the worse. I think back to last night, how he claimed to be "37 moves ahead of me", then look back down at the board. No. Do not think about losing. All I need to do is roll a 10, 11, or 12, then I'll be okay. Kenji's currently a few spots behind me, and if he rolls a 3 or a 5, he'll land right on one of my blue properties. I've spent the majority of my money on reinforcing my properties with hotels, so if he lands there, he's finished.

I take a deep breath and take the dice. I can feel them moving around in my hand as I shake, and once I feel the time's right I let them go.

2.

Are you kidding me.

I move past GO and collect my 200 dollars, but all of that is lost when I land straight on Mediterranian Avenue, fortified with 3 hotels. The irony of it being that exact spot and with that exact number of hotels on it is far from lost on me. I'm so shocked by the sheer coincidence that he reaches for the dice, but I pick up the pen and paper instead.

"I'm bankrupt. You win."

I can see him laughing out loud, before he writes his response.

"TAKE THAT! You femmy scum are no match for me."

Noticing his shift in tone (or personality?), I look at him quizzically, before writing, "Am I being boring?"

"Yeah. When you lose, you look like you want to strangle a cat or something."

I try and contort my face into the most neutral expression I can muster, writing, "Okay, fine. But what the hell was with that propechy last night? You literally predicted what property I was going to land on and how many hotels it would take to bankrupt me. I want to know what you're hiding."

Upon recieving the pad, he smirks, his glasses shining as he looks up at me. He writes something down, then shows the pad to me.

"Secret Anti-Feminist techniques."

I just roll my eyes.

"Whatever you say."

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, that was fun.
And I think it is one of the VERY few stories pairing Shizune and Kenji