Entracte

[Shurikane]

I happened to be bored one day, so I said to my friend Amelia: "Hey, what are we actually?"

And Amelie looked at me and said: "I dunno. What do you mean?"

And I said: "Well, we're girls, right?"

"Yep."

"And we have nice and classy clothes, right?"

"Yep."

"And we have nice breasts and good curves and a good personality, right?"

"Yep."

<B>I put my finger on my mouth, looking off to the side for a minute, thinking...</B> And then I turned to Amelia again and said: "You know, what makes us the girls we are?"

And Amelie shrugged and said: "I dunno. What do you mean?"

And I said: "Well, we don't describe ourselves, we get described by people, right?"

"Yep."

"And thus we are what people say we are, right?"

"Yep."

"And if we ever go down in history, we'll be written about as what the writer thought we were, right?"

"Yep."

<B>I looked at the sky, and then at the ground, and then at my feet, pondering my next path...</B> "So does this whole thing create a person that's really not us?"

And Amelia sighed and said: "I dunno. What do you mean?"

And I said: "Well, remember Amedeo Modigliani? He painted people the way he saw them, with flashy colors and eyes and elongated faces, 'cause that's the way he saw 'em, right?"

"Yep."

"And Vincent van Gogh painted with lots of yellow colors because he was partway colorblind and saw yellow the most, right?"

"Yep."

"And this other artist I forgot the name, well he drew the story of the Vivian girls, but since he had never seen a girl naked, he thought they were built the same ways as boys under those clothes, right?"

"Yep."

<B>So I said:</B> "So doesn't that make you think?"

And Amelia did some kind of indifferent frown and said: "I dunno. What are you getting at?"

"That we might be anything in this story. As far as I can read up from here, the author hasn't described our hair, our eyes, our limbs, how many of each body part we have, how they're arranged, how they're formed. For all I know, I might have three blue hands on the back of my neck and I won't know about it until the end of page five."

"And thus?"

"Well, as a person, I knew who I was. But transformed into a character, I've lost my identity. I'm no longer the person the author got his inspiration from. I'm something else. He took his inspiration from something he saw, turned it into a character than there I was born. Remember Napoleon? He said 'History is a set of lies agreed upon.' and it's true! Whatever people write out in books isn't exactly what it is. There's always a bias or an interpretation in there."

"Get to the point."

"Amelia, we are representations of the author's thoughts. Have you noticed? We're just two characters in this story. And we're both girls. And we're both pretty much beautiful. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"That he's used to just seeing cute girls?"

"There you go! Or, his concept of a girl is someone with shapes like us."

"So what? The author is a he; he can dream. Besides, it's every man's dream to have the perfect girlfriend. He isn't gonna write about some fat sixty year old chick with arthritis."

I stopped for a brief moment... "You have a point..."

"Listen." Amelia said. "You gotta stop thinking like an actor and start thinking like a character. Besides, what's your name anyways?"

"...I don't know... It's not mentioned anywhere in this text!"

"Are you sure?"

"I've checked! Twice! I don't even have a name!" My eyes opened wide in horror. "What kind of story is this?"

Amelia just stared at me and laughed. "You're in the author's story. He sets up the rules of the game. And in this game, you don't see to have a name. You think you're on a coffee break between two chapters, but what do you know really? You might be under control of the author's pen and keyboard at this very instant."

"So... What should I do now?"

"Well, as a seasoned character, I suggest you do the right thing: forget about breaks between chapters, it's way too hard on your mind. So get back in-character and play your role. You're whatever the author wants you to be."

It can't be! I gazed at Amelia with panic in my eyes. A tear began rolling down my left cheek. "Will... Will he ever let us out and become real people once again?"

"Stories are fantasies, they're what ifs, they're possible situations, they're everything the author wants them to be. It's his world. It's the only place where he may play God. So my answer to your question is: Only if he wants to. Only if he wants to..."

[Silver Adept]

Hee, nice job Shuri!

That's about the style that a lot of my characters take to me. The problem is, a lot of them end up being smartarses around me and complaining about how they have poor characterization...

[BWS-1]

Man, that's an impressive work! I love it when it's confusing like that, yet so true, then again, the truth is often the major source of confusion in this world, for either it is denied as being the truth cause it's too horrible, or it just sounds like a lie to our ears since it comes break our conception we had made of the truth.

That was a quite amusing story to read as well!