Story: Real World Sailor Moon

Could someone help me work out if the following is using smartquotes? I changed the gdoc settings, but I'd rather if someone else could help me make sure.

“Oh, duh! I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid!”

Kotori slapped her forehead, then repeated the measure a few more times just to drive home the point, providing further punctuation with the word “dumb” repeated like it was a holy mantra. Though it was a funny thing. As embarrassed as she should have been for being so wrong about something it was overwhelmed by the joy of seeing something she'd missed, a solution to a puzzle which she should have seen before. In essence: She was looking her own stupidity right in the eye, laughing in its face and recognising every little thing wrong with it.

This only stopped when Usagi grabbed her wrist, and tears welled up in her eyes. It was the kind of sight that rather ruins any good mood you might possibly have going, because Usagi Tsukino might not be good at a whole lot of things, but you can bet that she is damn good at looking cute, and is at an Olympic standard when it comes to crying.

“It’s alright,” Usagi sniffed. “Don’t go beating yourself up because you feel stupid! Otherwise I might… I might…”

Which was when Ami hugged the too adorable Usagi from behind, who reciprocated while completely missing the discreet grope the genius gave mid-hug. Meanwhile, Makoto was inspecting her nails while trying to pretend that she didn’t want to march on over and hug both of them at once, and Rei was attempting to scowl at the open display of “friendly” affection, but only succeeded in making the most intense bedroom eyes you ever did see.

“No, what I mean is… Look, I shouldn’t have been focusing on <i>what</i> happens. Right? The real problem is <i>how</i> things happen. There’s a pattern to how these episodes play out, and that’s something we can make use of to figure out how things are about to go down!”

“Tsk,” Rei sneered. “I don’t want to hear anything about going down on anyone, thank you very much. Filthy-minded perverts always turning things back to sex…”

“No, I think I understand her intention,” Ami said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Correct me if I’m mistaken, but you’re referring to storytelling tropes. That is, a significant or recurring theme throughout a fictional work or a motif. Patterns found within the narrative, such as those found within the monomyth concept popularised by Joseph Campbell and you're all looking at me as though my head just sprouted bright heliotrope plumage so I should perhaps close my mouth.”

It was the little things like that which made Kotori so excited about her current position. Look at how cute Ami was when she realised she was the centre of attention! Look at the way she blushed, stared at the ground and wrung her hands in a way that made her arms push her delightful breasts together. Oh gosh, and her without her camera.

“Alright, alright!” Makoto said, twisting Kotori’s ear quite firmly. Which, from Makoto, made Kotori just a little surprised it didn’t come right off. “That’s enough drooling over our genius for a while. What’d you mean by patterns? And explain it simply.”

“How simply?”

“So Usagi can understand it!” Luna said.

“Oh,” Kotori said. “I’m not sure I can do <i>that</i> simple… Maybe some diagrams?”

The girls all crowded around a patch of dirt that would have to do for a makeshift blackboard. Someone found a stick from somewhere, and Kotori found herself trying to ignore the fact that she was in a huddle with the Sailor Senshi, and that if she moved just a fraction of an inch she could maybe touch one of their amazing bodies. Or that they might do the same and touch hers. It was the kind of thing that clouded the mind just a little, and if she wasn't so distracted by the possibilities her epiphany could lead to she might well have fangirled herself into a coma.

Since that was distracting her, she started by drawing a little stick figure with little buns adorning either side of its head. Usagi stared at it in wide-eyed wonder while the others concentrated a bit more keenly.

“Your usual episode begins with one of you - normally Usagi - getting interested in something or someone,” Kotori began. “Then we cut away to our villains, who announce some evil plan involving that very subject. Then we have some kind of comedy scene which normally foreshadows how the day is saved, or a way in which things are going to go horribly wrong later - Yes, Usagi? You have a question?”

“When you say ‘foreshadow’,” Usagi began, her hand still raised into the air, “do you mean I’m standing in front of four lamps?”

“… Are you sure this girl’s supposed to be our leader?” Rei asked.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Luna replied. “She apparently has other qualities that make up for her ditziness.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Ami sighed dreamily. “I mean… She - She cares a lot about people, and is braver than she thinks she is, and - And -”

“Anyway!” Kotori interjected. Cute as it was to watch them go into their normal routine, if she let that distract her then she'd never get this finished. “All of you would become aware of something weird going on with… Whatever or whoever the subject was, so you begin investigating. One of you gets caught up in a sexy trap of some sort, the others come to rescue you. Then either all of you get picked off one by one or captured all at once, then Tuxedo Mask shows up to give some flowery speech, then one of you does something brave or smart that saves the day. There are a few outliers, like the time…” At the edge of her consciousness dizziness began to set in. “Ugh… Sorry, better not give any specific examples.”

Makoto scratched her head. “So what you’re saying is that we should probably lock Usagi in one of those sensory deprivation tanks to keep the enemy from attacking?”

“I don’t know what ten-story deep nation tanks are, but I don’t want to be in one!”

“Well, I don't think that would work anyway,” Kotori chirped, again finding herself attempting to distract herself from the absurdity of the situation and exactly how hard she really should be fangirling out right about now. “I mean, this place either works on the basis of story structure or it doesn't. In the case of the first, something else would foreshadow the enemy’s movements anyway, and if not they’ll just do whatever they were going to regardless. However… If we play this smart, we can learn from these common tropes and try to play them to our advantage!”

“Um… Won’t we need to do this in a way that avoids reflexivity?” Ami asked with hand raised. “Sorry if that seemed obvious, but… If we are supposed to be playing by the rules of narrative, then the very universe itself might…”

And now it was Ami’s turn to experience the same kind of joy that Kotori did earlier. It was really quite a new experience for her. Ami was so intelligent that she was rarely ever wrong about anything, rarely missed anything obvious, but now with the facts laid out in front of her the way they were she could hardly miss it.

“Hey, genius chick!” Rei barked, snapping her fingers in front of Ami’s face. “Stop staring at my perfect, bouncy and full tits!” Though, of course, she was doing so while leaning forward in a way that would naturally draw Ami’s eyeline directly towards her chest.

“Sorry,” Ami whispered. “I think we should… Stop trying to figure this out and head home for the day. This is a lot to take in for all of us, and I think we should sleep on this before going any further.”

“Really?” Luna asked. “But surely we should at least try to figure out a way to meet -”

“Ugh…” Usagi yawned. “Ami’s right, this is all way too heavy for me to take. I need to saw some logs.”

“Perhaps if I meditate in front of the fire, I might see a vision.” Rei scowled and impatiently tapped her foot. “Hm… For viewing a perverted enemy, it might be more effective if I were to remove my robes…”

“Tsch!” Makoto rolled her eyes. “Okay, whatever. At least we met up with Mars and beat up some baddie. How about we meet up tomorrow ’bout this time? I’ll bring some cakes.”

“Makoto’s cakes?!” Kotori exclaimed, no longer able to hold back her fangirl side and excitedly embracing the tough but beautiful girl by the upper arms. Only because she couldn't reach the shoulders. “I get to eat some of your delicious cakes?!”

Ami politely coughed. “Um… Kotori? You’ll need a place to stay. My mother shouldn’t be home tonight, so you can rest at my place.”

“And I have a sleepover with Ami Mizuno! Oh gosh, this is the best day ever! I can ask you who your favourite author is, I can give you fashion tips, maybe some advice for how to get a certain someone's attention, or…”

Her voice trailed off as the real world girl walked off with the genius, who turned and awkwardly smiled at her friends while waving farewell. They waved back, and Usagi leaned towards Makoto. “That girl is a bit of a hyperactive ditz, isn’t she?”

To which both Rei and Makoto turned to look at Usagi as if her head had actually transformed into a giant bun right before their very eyes.

At the bottom of the steps, Kotori was still excitedly rambling into Ami’s seeming endless well of shy patience. “And I’ll get to tell you all about the new tech we’ve developed since the series first came out. The advance of the Internet, mobile phones - Which I think you have now already but we have them waaay better and they do more than call people, and then there’s this thing called graphene I keep reading about which sounds like magic and -”

Which is when Ami shut her up with another kiss. Now, the first one had quite thoroughly fried Kotori's brain, and this one had no less an effect. After all, how would you react if you met one of your favourite fictional characters and got the chance to make out with them twice in a span of about ten minutes? Especially when they were as hot as Ami, or any of the Senshi for that matter. You would be like Kotori was. Mesmerised by how soft those lips felt. Teased into responding to that wondrous tongue. You too would be compelled to hold that amazing body closer to yours until you could feel their heart beating in their chest, and it still wouldn’t be close enough.

“S-Sorry,” Ami whispered when their lips parted. “That seemed to work last time, and I needed to, um, talk with you seriously for a moment.”

“… ’Kay!” Kotori mumbled mindlessly. “Mind if I hug you while you talk?”

“Not at all,” Ami said with a shrug, honestly finding the hug comfortable but wishing it were Usagi holding her like that instead. Maybe someday. Maybe with Kotori’s help… “Um, I was just thinking. What if the story itself is reacting to our attempts to change it?”

“Huh?” Kotori asked. “Whatcha mean?”

“Well, it’s just that we tried to meet with Makoto first since she went to our school.”

“Right. Just like what was meant to happen.”

“Except that it wasn’t like that when we first checked!” Ami squeezed Kotori tighter, and the real world girl rested her head on Ami’s shoulder. “That’s what I’m talking about. The story itself is changing to try to keep itself on track. It’s reacting to our attempts to manipulate it. So, what will happen if we try to manipulate the very structure of the story instead of individual events within it? We’ll almost certainly wind up worse off if we do something like that.”

“Oh!” Kotori gasped. “Is that why you didn’t want the others to hear this?”

“Um, yes,” Ami admitted. “I wasn’t too sure how they would react to it. Actually… I was thinking that we should probably test this hypothesis first before telling them anyway. I’m not even twenty-five percent certain it’s correct, but it fits all the facts so far.”

“Test it?” Kotori asked. “How?”

“Well… What sort of thing would happen if one of us wound up having a slumber party with another girl?”

“They’d have amazing sex before dawn. Either with each other or someone else that shows up during the night.” Skip a beat, cue the dawning realisation hitting Kotori like a runaway train, then a near-absolute dead silence. “Oh.”

“So, that’s the mission for tonight,” Ami advised, blushing madly and pulling herself away from Kotori. “No sex. In fact, I’m deliberately going to go out of my way to make it impossible for anything like that to happen. And maybe we can talk a little about other things as well?”

1. Turns out Kotori has had a youma corruption implanted in her that Ami can only remove by inducing orgasm.
2. A youma happens to attack the Mizuno residence over the course of the night.
3. Nothing happens to them during the night. But things happen to the others instead when the narrative focus shifts to them.
4. Usagi runs into Mamoru. Flirting happens, but they don't think of it as flirting.
5. Something else