Got some bad news today, serious depression, so... time to write some comedy.
Sorry about the lack of update, but I could barely move for half the day.
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Backstage #5 - You Can (Not) Sober Up
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"Psssst."
Gendo looked up from lighting the next bowl. He took a deep drag first, though. Never hurt to have a little more, be a bit more mellow, when meeting new people. This was new people, right? Wait, he needed to look at them first to find out.
"Hello? Whozzat?" he inquired carefully. "This is for personal use, officer," he added as a just-in-case.
"Down here," the voice whispered from somewhere above him.
Gendo thought for a moment, then looked up. "Hah, you can't fool me, you're not to my left!"
Mari Makinami looked down at him from her perch among the lighting racks over the Central Dogma set. "Man, you are stoned. Ok, quick, I've sent that PA and his new assistant chasing Sakura again. They think she's got some more of my script pages. They don't know those are right here!" Mari brandished a sheaf of papers."
"So what's she got?" Gendo chased the key mystery.
"Some Chinese takeout menus with Sakura's crayon embellishments."
"Cool." Gendo took another hit. "Ok, two questions. #1, you want a hit of this? And #2, what are you showing me these pages for? I'm not in the next scene, as far as I know." He scratched at his head. "Well, as far as I can remember, anyhow. It's still Tuesday, right?"
"Saturday."
"....fuck, I missed taco night!"
Mari warily looked around for any lurking production assistants or Directors before uncurling from the lighting rack like a large cat and dropping nimbly to the floor, landing in a picture-perfect three-point crouch. Gendo would have been impressed if he hadn't been looking at an actual cat that had wandered across the far side of the set.
"Whoa.... a cat..." Gendo looked back up. "Hey, where'd you go?"
Mari tapped him on his left shoulder. "Er, I'm right here?"
"Oh holy shit, you are to my left! Whoa, I can predict the future!" Gendo exclaimed.
"Ah, look, you're obviously a very... busy man. And I've got to get this stuff," she hefted a large bag in her left hand, "back to Miss Soryu's trailer in the next 20 minutes or she's going to notice I've been gone a suspiciously long time, even for getting this weird shopping list of hers."
"Weird?"
"Indian takeout, 10m of silk rope, six candles, 8 D-Cell batteries, some matches, and a jar of salt blessed by a Eastern Orthodox Priest," Mari explained. "I have no idea why, but she was very insistent I go get all this for her right away." Mari snorted. "She smelled like rum and I know that super-hot boytoy of herrrrrrrrrrrrrr, I mean your handsome and intelligent son," she hastily corrected, "was already in her trailer with her. I think she just wanted me to go away. She could have just let me have a break." Mari glanced to the side. "Ok, so maybe the last time I 'took a break' we shot that scene with me parachuting onto Shinji, but still..."
Gendo blinked. "She wanted all that in a hurry, smelled like rum, and was in her trailer with my son? All afternoon?"
"Yeah."
"Man, that's my boy!" Gendo took another hit. "So, whatcha need me for? I've got the hook up, if you need," he said with a cough.
Mari grinned and held up the sheaf in her other hand. "I think you'll like these pages."
"I dunno, the last time you said that, the Director said I wasn't allowed to take anymore from you. Even if scene with the giant exploding Rei head that cried blood was pretty metal. Or was that Yui's head? Uh, what was that supposed to symbolize, again?"
Mari waved the sheaf at him. "It's too deep for you, don't worry about it," she said. "You'll get it after you sleep on it. Anyhow, you'll like this stuff. You get another scene with your son! And a way cool space-future visor. Way better than Kihl's!"
"I'm in."
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"Shinji."
"Father..." the young Pilot said tremulously, trying not to hunch over in the spotlight. The cavernous chamber housing the huge, steam hissing dome with EVA UNIT-13 stenciled across it was at the same time oppressively hot and humid, but still somehow left him chilled to the bone.
"You will Pilot Unit-13. You will do it with the Fifth Child," Gendo said ominously from within the beam of his own spotlight, on the balcony far above the hissing dome. A third spotlight snapped on behind Shinji, illuminating a smiling Kaworu Nagisa, who waved.
"Father, I have questions!" Shinji found the nerve to speak up. "What happened to NERV? Why was Misato-san and the others fighting? What happened... to... everything."
Gendo's way-cool space future visor glittered coldly in the spotlight's beam. "Shinji," Gendo said even more darkly. "Quit whining and get in the fucking giant robot."
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"CUT!" Director Strype threw his hat at the ground. "Gendo, that's not even the line! That's that same old memetic joke you keep throwing in the blooper reels! You do it in every goddamn scene you and Shinji do together!"
Gendo bent over, giggling helplessly. "I'm sorry, dude, I had to! That set up was perfect!" He pointed at the First, Third, and Fifth Children, all of whom were likewise cracking up at the far end of the set. "Look, I just killed it! Everyone's happy!"
"I don't want 'happy', I want what's in the bloody script! We are already three weeks behind the shooting schedule, and what the Hell is that thing on your face?!"
"My way-cool space future visor."
The Director's face was a study in shades of Wut. "What is this I don't even..." He scrubbed at his face. "Fine, you know? Whatever. Space future visor. Sure. Why not?"
"Way-cool space future visor."
Strype gripped the copy of the script in his hands tighter and tighter until it squeaked, and slowly turned the color of Unit-02. "Going. To Murder. Everyone..."
"You look like you need some of Uncle Gendo's Special Medicine," Gendo said, nodding sagely. He pulled a bag of green buds out of his pocket. "Just what the doctor ordered!"
Strype glared at him. "Since when are you a doctor?"
"Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, Class of '93. I specialized in pharmacology," Gendo said peaceably. "So, you like some?"
Strype stared at him. ".....you're a doctor. A medical doctor. At 26."
"I had a few years free, seemed like a thing to do. I needed something with a bit more intellectual bite after I finished the Tour de France."
"Wut."
"Ah, Mister Director? I told you my dad had been everywhere, done everything," Shinji said, still wiping tears out of his eyes. "Wait until he tells you about his time in La Légion."
"Oui," Gendo nodded. "C'était une période de grandes aventures. Et de chevaux."
"Wut." Strype shook his head again. "I'm too sober for this."
"I can fix that!" Gendo said, smiling helpfully. He held up the baggie again.
"You shut up!" Strype picked up his hat and carefully, calmly uncrumpled his copy of the script. "Ok, now, where were we?" He peered more closely at the pages. "What, what the fuck is this scene? I don't remember any 'Unit-13' in the storyboards."
"It did seem a little odd," Kaworu put in. "I mean, I thought Unit-13 was one of the Mass Production Series?"
"Shhh, that hasn't happened yet," Shinji stage whispered to him.
"Oh, right. Nevermind me!"
"Wait, this is more of that crack Makinami keeps slipping in, isn't it?" Strype said warily. "I knew it! Makinami, get down here! I'm going to make you an extra in Rebuild of Aeon Entelechy Evangelion!"
"Wasn't that a rewrite of Aeon Natum Engel to start with? So, that's like Rebuild-ception!" Mari said from the rafters.
"Ah HAH! There she is!" Strype cried. "Pen Pen, grab her!"
"Tally-ho!" said the hot-springs penguin, taking flight towards the voice.
"Uh oh," Mari said. Skittering noises rapidly heading away were heard overhead, mixed in with the flapping of penguin wings.
"I thought penguins were flightless birds?" Shinji said, watching Pen Pen zoom in and out of the lighting rig.
Strype scoffed. "Shows what you know, kid. Pen Pen went to Oxford. He learned a lot."
Shinji boggled at him. "To fly?"
"Did you go to Oxford? Can you fly?" Strype retorted.
".....no, but.... huh?"
"Everyone, take five while we chase her down," Strype called to the set at large. "Gendo, get down here and take that.... thing off."
"Awww...."
"But... but... but... penguins can't fly..." Shinji complained to Kaworu, who slung an arm around his shoulder.
"Eh, don't worry about it too much, bro. This is only a TV show," Kaworu said.
"What? What? But... he... flying penguin?"
"Who went to Oxford. Keep up, here."
"I'm too sober for this," Shinji complained.
"Let's go see the girls, and you'll feel better. Everything's better when you've got Asuka around, right?"
"Ok..." Shinji let the smiling Fifth Child lead him off towards the trailers.
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