Marmalade Mercury: Postlude

*_* MARMALADE MERCURY *_*

POSTLUDE: THE SPOILERS BEHIND THE STORY

Here’s a reminder of the timelines from Episode 0.

THE SAGA: Dec 1996: Episode 1

Jan-Mar 1997: Reworked Episode 1 and completed Episode 2

Apr 1997: After receiving positive feedback, wrote Episodes 3 & 4

May 1997: Episodes 5 & 6, story posted to webpage (vs NCF)

Jun-Aug 1997: Break; troubles working in the class trip

Wrote “A Stitch in Time” Sep 1997: Episode 7 in time for Ami’s birthday Oct 1997: Episode 8 Dec 1997: Episode 9; one year anniversary

Jan-Aug 1998: Break; out of MB synopses to reference!

Wrote “What Evil Lurks” Sep 1998: Thanks to continued support, wrote Episode 10

Again sent out in time for Ami’s birthday Oct-Nov 1998: Webpage troubles and some work on another story Dec 1998: Episode 11 out in time for XMas; have synopses to 20! Aug 1999: Episode 12; now over 2.5 years in Jul 2000: Episode 13 completed, unreleased

2002: The live action “Marmalade Boy” series

2004: English dub of “Marmalade Boy” released by Tokyopop

May 2017: “Marmalade Boy” relicensed by Discotek Media

Aug 2017: Episodes 14 & 15 to complete the series

Yes, that’s a 17 year gap. Keep reading this Postlude for why.

FINAL CHARACTER LIST: (Quick reference guide. Names listed Japanese style, last name first.) MARMALADE BOY (MB) -> SAILOR MOON (SM)

Koishikawa Miki -> Mizuno Ami Matsuura Yuu -> Anderson Greg* Akizuki Meiko -> Tsukino Usagi Suou Ginta -> Ryo Urawa Suzuki Arimi -> Aino Minako Namura (sensei) -> Chiba Mamoru Ryoko (sensei) -> Sujigaki Kato* Rokutanda Tsutomu -> Kanren Sewaya* Miwa Satoshi -> Taylor Kaijin* Kishima (shop owner) -> Motoki “Lunchtime News” -> Umino

*: Created for the story (not originally in SM)

A SEVENTEEN YEAR GAP: Yeah. So that happened. Why return to a fanfic after all that time? Two factors.

(1) A Promise.

In the “story behind the story” (ep 0), I always concluded the saga section with the following disclaimer:

“Writing, as usual, depends on my schedule, timing and if readers think there’s merit ;) If I decide to stop, however, I will try and write a conclusion so as not to leave the plot hanging.”

Did I try? Did I really try? There’s two fanfic projects I was still picking away at in 1999. One was a grandiose multi-author effort surrounding a picture of Ami (either with a baby or pregnant, I no longer recall) that involved Ami having secretly had Mamoru’s love child, named Setsuna, and perhaps you can see where that’s going… I no longer remember who was coordinating it.

My part of the story involved Ami’s return to Japan; I was recruited after someone read “What Evil Lurks”. I have a sketchy gap-filled 3,500 words on an old computer that I sent off at some point, saying I’d clean it up. I didn’t, and then I never heard what became of that initiative either.

The other fanfic was “Marmalade Mercury”.

I never released Episode 13 (completed July 2000) for a few reasons. First, Ep 12 was almost-kinda-sorta a conclusion, whereas Ep 13 definitely was NOT, and I didn’t like my chances of completing Ep 14, where both anime plots would formally fuse.

Particularly given how at the time I was in my final year of University, and things like needing a job were on the horizon. Better to leave the series on a high note.

Second, “Time Trippers” (now “Time & Tied”) was becoming my new baby, scribblings from December 1999 becoming a full episode by October 2000; I was looking forwards, not back. (I only now realize that Meiko was a prototype for Julie LaMille. This blows my mind.)

Finally, I suspect I’d been feeling a certain distance from the NCF community, having been in Waterloo for quite some time, and/or the Moon Craze seemed to be wearing off. If no one was asking for it, why point out that this was a thing I might now never finish?

Except. I’d said I’d try to write a conclusion.

And I still had some notes, including an incredibly epic self-insert trolling twist, the likes of which I had never seen in a fanfic before. At thirteen parts, it taunted me.

To quote from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (itself quoting “Moby Dick”): JOACHIM: We are free. We have a ship, and the means to go where we will. We have escaped permanent exile on Ceti Alpha V. You have proven your superior intellect, and defeated the plans of Admiral Kirk. You do not need to defeat him again. KHAN: He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him. I’ll chase him around the Moons of Nibia and round the Antares Maelstrom and round Perdition’s flames before I give him up!

I know. That might not be the best comparison.

(2) Good Timing.

From 2016-2017, I was taking a year off of work (that is one single year, a “teaching” year). This allowed me to complete my writing of “Time & Tied” Book 4, gave me the opportunity to write “The Girl Who Speaks With Algebra” during 2016’s NaNoWriMo (later re-edited), let me write various guest posts for other blogs, and meant I could catch up on old projects.

“Marmalade Mercury” stared at me from my hard drive, where I had dragged it, from laptop to laptop, year after year. My own creativity page labelled it as “Stalled after 13 episodes, I keep meaning to write a conclusion!”.

Related, in 2014, I received an email out of the blue from someone named “Mac Kintana”, who had stumbled on “What Evil Lurks” in an old archive, and was wondering if I had any other stories. This, after my “Sailor Mercury’s Ultimate Fan” interview was uploaded earlier that year to YouTube.

Also in 2017, Scott Delahunt had written a conclusion to one of his old stories, “Tales of the Soul Blade”, after having posted it up in weekly entries onto his website.

Did I want to revisit the past? To finally tie things off? To prove that, no matter what, when I say I’ll finish something, I’ll BLOODY WELL FINISH it?

August 2017, three weeks before school would resume, I realized it was now… or never.

It was now.

I’d like to say that the relicensing of “Marmalade Boy” was a factor, but I only found that out when checking references later. It’s possible that I’d seen something on a website in passing, burrowing itself into my subconscious, but I’m dubious.

RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST: I spent Day 1 completely re-reading the previous 13.1 parts. (I add 0.1 because in those days, I would always start writing a little bit into the next episode, to give myself a jumping off point.)

That took about 7 hours, because I had to remove a bunch of Hard Returns, while putting in some new paragraph breaks (I’d head-hopped a lot), plus I’m a slow reader. I didn’t bother changing all the ellipses, or the double spacing after periods.

Thing is, it wasn’t terrible. That kind of surprised me.

My “Marmalade Boy” summaries through to Ep 20 were long gone (largely written on paper), but hey, it’s NOT 1999, there’s this thing called the INTERNET. It wasn’t hard to track down quick synopses for MB episodes 1-24. (Granted, it’s a bit of a ghost-land after that, and it went 76 episodes.) Meanwhile, the online information on “Sailor Moon” is a hundred times more comprehensive, so no worries there. Was that enough?

I tweeted out (paraphrasing) “Marmalade Mercury. How much time do I really want to devote to you?” After a brief conversation with Scott (see “Soul Blade” above), I mused, “Do I just write based on the notes and scribbles left behind, or do I actually rewatch some MarmBoy?” (I own the whole series.) He suggested, rewatch a few episodes to trigger the rest of the memories.

I don’t really do half measures.

I took six hours the following day to watch thirteen episodes, from Episode 13 (for a baseline) through to Episode 25. Writing out plot points and direct quotes in a text file as I went.

It probably helped that I was used to doing that after my recent “Series Scans”. I also think it made the process a lot easier in the long run, as it gave me something to draw from when I got stuck.

I also watched “Sailor Mercury Moving On?” (online) for good measure, the SMR Mercury power-up episode, and my God, that DiC show overused tiara scene wipes.

On Day 3, I started in.

Episode 14. What did I have to work with from 2000? The opening scene with Greg, essentially ditching Ami’s mother from the plot. The start of another scene with Ami. The remark “Minako comes over, talks with Ami”. Then “broom closet with Minako to avoid Kaijin” before the commercial break.

A few other miscellaneous half-sentences. Also, a need to blend in Mamoru/Kato, after having set up the fateful Chibi-Usa boat trip back in Ep 13. The lingering title? QUALIFICATION OF LOVE - (TBD).

I resigned myself to the fact that one episode wouldn’t be enough to race through twelve episodes of MB plot.

Could I do it in two? The original idea had been to align ‘Ami leaving Japan’ with ‘Namura leaving Tokyo’, but if instead I used Ami’s trip to Germany as a CLOSING to the whole story… this felt plausible.

Mercury returns, and done. It also meant that re-using “THINGS AREN’T GOING AS PLANNED”, the MB title from ep 18, had a double meaning for me.

I got through about 3,500 words that first day. About 4,800 the next, bringing me halfway into Ep 15, and then another 4,000 on the third and final day of writing. Allowing me to type two words after five days: END SERIES. (Yeah, that last ep ran long. Oh well.)

Then I needed a day for edits, as well as deciding to type up THIS document, because sure, more work. In case anyone else wants tips on revisiting a story they began 20 years earlier. Hope it helps?

ENDING THE PLOT THREADS: Pretty much none of it was planned in advance. (Is it ever with me?)

Kaijin’s last name WAS my epic trolling self-insert twist, which had been in there from the start… in as much as I didn’t give him a last name, on the off chance that I could come up with something even better later on. So, how could I close off the other relationships?

Pulling in Minako’s fan club, from MB ep 23, gave me a good way to shut down the Sewaya angle. I’d also wondered about working in SMoon’s “Missing Minako Episode” (from Season One), giving details about her being in England… never dubbed, and NOT easy to research in 1997, but drop dead easy in 2017. So I worked that in.

Minako/Sewaya? Finished. I still gave Sewaya an appearance and a line, because it helped get Mina into the closet with Greg, a parallel to MB Ep 14.

Following that commercial break, I went off book, which I lampshaded in Ami’s looking at the TV Guide. In MB, Miki doesn’t put Yuu’s picture into the medallion until Ep 19, after the truth about her housing situation gets out. That’s the same ep where Yuu finally learns who Miwa is, so Motoki got to pull that reveal here, thanks to Kaijin’s timely introduction moments earlier.

The intervening MB episodes (15-18) had largely dealt with Meiko/Namura, which here was Usagi/Mamoru/Kato. With that tied to an existing plot in SM, it was kind of a nuisance; I decided for closure, I simply had to get rid of Kato. The best plan seemed to be having her confess (she never really did in MB, but she did invite Namura up), then “put her on a bus”.

Ideally, I foreshadowed Mamoru’s breakup in the process of that scene, and what the hell, I threw in a Moonlight Knight reference to remind people it’s anime continuity. Done. In my opinion, that ended up being the weakest conclusion. (But then, in MB, Namura comes back way later anyway.)

Urawa was going to be a pain. In part because his MB plot was basically over. But I had sort of an idea there. I gave him an offscreen vision, and another scene with Minako, to indicate I hadn’t forgotten him.

Next, Ami’s insistence on talking to Greg was a potential problem, but the Germany news felt like the perfect thing to refocus the poor girl’s attention away from romance. Could I make her having that news plausible?

In the anime, Ami tells her friends about the trip. The next day, she tells Usagi she doesn’t want a big going away party, and Artemis is frozen by the Dark Moon. Cut to the day Ami leaves. Artemis missing for days stretches credulity, particularly when coupled with Chibi-Usa wanting to search Ami’s place for the Ginzuishou. But by the same measure, surely the scholarship thing would give at least a week’s notice, right? I had timeline plausibility.

Incidentally, I’m amused at how the ice cream place in MB is called “Bobsons’” while in SM it’s called “Bob-Floy”. Yeah, I played with that.

I knew then that Episode 15 was going to be heavy. I’d have to deal with the entire Germany angle (including Sailor Senshi), Greg’s origins, AND miscellaneous details like the housing situation reveal.

So, I started the “boys love” angle (from MB ep 20) in ep 14 too, using Makoto as a vehicle (Usagi being otherwise engaged). And I gave Kaijin the commercial bumper, meaning every bumper appears at least twice. (The names separated by commas were always the valid pairing. See below.)

Narratively speaking, I realized I also had to end ep 14, not with Chibi-Usa’s appearance (which I would subsequently be relegating to the background), but Ami’s final plot. Germany vs. Friendship. That sets up the end.

Episode 15 begins: I decided I had to keep that scene in the bushes from MB. Partly to preserve one of Umino’s only real contributions, but also because it’s so precious. In the process, I hinted at the Dark Moon plot using “is that a fancy calculator” (LITERALLY a line from MB to Miki, though not by him), and I did my best to tie up the housing angle while also pulling in the flashback line I’d set up in 1997. (MB loves it some flashbacks.)

The Minako/Urawa scene after was partly for humour (cousins and implausible reliability), partly to hint that I knew the Senshi thing was coming, wait for it.

The Ami/Greg scene that followed got away from me. In the original, Yuu’s revelation was at the end of Ep 23, Miki then talks with Satoshi in Ep 24, and it all culminates in Ep 25. I pulled in bits and pieces from ALL those sources.

They wouldn’t stop talking. (The England “trial run” thing was always a thought, by the way.) Finally, I decided screw it, and called myself halfway done, dropping the Greg Taylor thing in before the commercial.

More lip service to SM after that, with Chibi-Usa as a conversation blocker, that was surprisingly handy.

The Ami/Kaijin scene let me close off the Kaijin/Usagi romance, while bleeding in the details from Ep 24 that hadn’t fit in the Ami/Greg scene. Then, the big reveal. I swear, honestly, I didn’t know if I’d follow the MB plot or not here - I was already off the rails.

What if I had Kaijin’s dad say, “Yeah, that’s actually true, you’re Greg Taylor.” Who cares, right? What decided me was the fact that a denial meant Greg could leave Japan along with Ami. A more fitting conclusion.

Oh, a detail you likely didn’t notice?

In the anime “Fushigi Yugi” (Mysterious Play), the word to summon the ultimate power is “Kaijin”. Since I already had a Kaijin Taylor, how about a Fushigi Taylor. I’m crazy. You’re welcome.

Earlier references to the characters of “Dr. Tavolite” and “Enmae” were, if memory serves, shout-outs to player characters on the Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Mux (BSSM), where I did online role-play as Urawa. No, really. (He starts working for a private detective, Kenjiro Cross, in Season Two.)

The Ami/Greg scene at the lake that followed allowed me to flash back to Ep 3, in the same way that MB did in Ep 25, which ends the entire first arc of “Marmalade Boy”’s run.

But not this story.

Greg had to know about the Mercury angle. That’s the only way this fanfic is in any way satisfying for a reader. (Or at least, for the author?) No, seriously, without that reveal, we end on such a down note. The story also just fizzles away, it’s not memorable, there’s nothing to recommend it. Greg HAS to know. Which is a problem.

There’s no way Ami would tell him. Not yet.

In the MB anime, Miki and Yuu had been together for over six months by this point. I was working with not quite five weeks, and Senshi had been a non-factor for all of it. I tooled around with a few options, including Greg being in town a day early (MB movie!) and overhearing Ami talking to Usagi before it all began, or maybe he’s at the airport and sees her get the Senshi pen… at some point, it hit me that Mercury was how I could close off Urawa’s thread.

Coupled with that was the matter of Rei. Sorely underused, because she didn’t go to Ami’s school, or have the ties to the plot that Minako did. I was kind of fine with this (she’s my least favourite Senshi), but I have made my peace with the character and I was doing so much with the others. All Rei had contributed was the medallion. That temple charm. Hmmmmmm.

The subsequent Urawa/Greg scene let me make some nice callbacks (like the chess match), drop in some relevant SM plot (Minako/Artemis), and finally have Urawa yield to the MB plot of letting Yuu win. It would also tease at the final dramatic reveal of the medallions, which are actually very key to MB lore, but here could be an unexpected twist. Toss in a few other veiled references (to future MB plots and the upcoming Shrine Advertising in SM) with Ami/Greg and we’re done. For REAL.

I stole the “happiness” line in the title from a later MB episode too. Sometimes, it all just fits together. It’s also somewhat relevant that, since I decided the last scene had to be Ami’s point-of-view (bookending the series), the earlier scene at the lake would be Greg. For balance.

Man, I head hopped a lot back in the day.

THE FUTURE: I think this marks the end of fanfiction for me? The biggest thing on the horizon is “Time & Tied: The University Years” aka “Time Untied”. In the meantime “The Epsilon Project” (a multiverse mashup of my original characters) continues on my serial blog. It’s a series that works on voting input; I think “Marmalade Mercury” has a lot to say about the way I view reader input on serials.

Alternatively, “Any ~Qs” (my personified math comic) is also ongoing. I hope you might join me in some of those endeavours? Look for “mathtans” on the web. But if not, thanks for reading this far. Good luck to any writing projects you might be involved in yourself!

COMMERCIAL BUMPER ROUNDUP: Ep 01: Ami, Greg and Urawa skating. Ep 02: Ami, Greg and Urawa skating. Ep 03: Minako, Urawa and Sewaya skating. Ep 04: Ami, Greg and Urawa skating. Ep 05: Ami, Greg and Urawa skating. Ep 06: Minako, Urawa and Sewaya skating. Ep 07: Ami, Greg and Urawa skating. Ep 08: Usagi, Mamoru and Kaijin skating. Ep 09: Ami, Greg and Urawa skating. Ep 10: Minako, Urawa and Sewaya skating. Ep 11: Usagi, Mamoru and Kaijin skating. Ep 12: Ami, Greg and Kaijin skating. Ep 13: Minako, Urawa and Sewaya skating. Ep 14: Ami, Greg and Kaijin skating. Ep 15: Ami, Greg and Urawa skating.

As I mentioned above, the names separated by commas were always the valid pairing in the end.

THANKS AGAIN TO:

• Scott Delahunt. For comments, for helping me realize Usagi couldn’t do all Meiko’s work by herself, for tips, and for general inspiration in the home stretch of 2017.
• Margaret Brown-Bury for the idea of Greg’s part-time job.
• Craig Erickson for offering assistance and brainstorming.
• Andrea Doolan for Marmalade Boy synopses, as well as Margaret Brown-Bury.
• drdata, for providing Karen Duffy’s synopses that were of some use.
• Brad Lascelle, for letting me borrow Marmalade Boy episodes 9-20 in the late 90s so that I could remember where I was going.
• Everyone who has e-mailed me concerning the story and everyone who has enjoyed it thus far. (A surprising number! :) That I no longer remember!)

Incidentally, the Marmalade Mercury Opening Sequence was something I put together myself, deliberately for this revival on the serial site. Mostly when I noticed how little editing was actually needed, the song beats fit in marvellously. Hope you enjoyed.

The card scans are all from my collection, both the Mercury and MB sets. And I think that’s everything. Happy September 10th. Peace out.