Lemur Rambles: .out.of.character. · 10:23pm May 10th, 2016
If you ever someday plan to build up the nerve to read this story--just as I one day had to build up the nerve to write it--then perhaps you should ignore this blargh. Capn', there be spoilers here.
The year 2014 was a pretty nifty year for Skirtsian fanfics... if only for the month of October alone. Something inside the lemur gland burst and I was writing an average of two oneshots per week. After a joyous hike, it all culminated in a much meatier, more intense project... something that had been circulating in my head from several different creative sources since 2012.
To make a long story short, it stole the tracks from underneath my literary locomotive, and the 2014 Express grinded to a halt.
So, what kind of a story could have killed such an awesome stride? Was it simply too long of a work? Did I get lazy all of the sudden? The answer to those questions may in fact be "yes," but there's more to it than that. For the first time since Background Pony, I stumbled upon a story concept that I had a difficult time writing... mostly due to the subject matter.
SS&E, IC, and JE stories can get pretty melodramatic at times. Ponies beat each other up in stupidly long fight scenes. Some characters die... others sink into depression. I certainly don't hold back from raunchy humor and silly innuendo. But if there's anything I like to pride myself on--it's that I don't typically write "rated M" stories strictly for exploitation factor. That is to say, I don't like to write clop or gore (or to be more specific, "torture pr0n"). Sure, there are a few exceptions here or there, but while I might dance around the subject matter... the act of diving right in just doesn't appeal to me. At least not in execution. It's not stuff I like to read... so why bother writing it, right?
Back in 2011, I had more hair on my balls. This shows in the rather grotesque and grim-dark stuff that happens in End of Ponies, Gift, The Last Tears in Tartarus, and even Background Pony. But once I had finished the last of those fics, I more or less felt that I had exorcised the demons from my subconscious. While I've dipped into miserable and/or sad content since then, I've just... preferred to write silly stuff, adventurous stuff, and adoracute stuff. Because why not, right?
But it hasn't stopped me from contemplating truly, truly dark story concepts, even if many of them originated from the early-early days of Skirtsian self-fappery. Background Pony, after all, evolved very loosely from a proposed fanfic-of-a-fanfic based on SamRose's Silent Ponyville series. I had always dreamed of writing Lyra in a super grimdark scenario that takes common brony tropes of her and reinterprets them in a creative, Rated M format. Some of these ideas transferred over into unfinished plans for Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon. In mid 2014, while suffering a creative slump, I briefly contemplated writing a whole string of creepy-pasta styled fanfics, just to see how freaked out the marsupial alumni would get. Like all good (and bad) things, it never happened.
Then, later that same year, my brain tickled with a concept that I had percolating for several months. The idea was similar to shiet I had done before under previous fanfic monitors, namely "thegreatestfanficever," in which the genre's cast of characters are thrown into a purposefully rotten and grammatically butchered narrative of which they are partially cognizant. I did this in both the Zelda and X-Men Evolution genres. They ended up being just as horribad and trite as one can imagine. However, this was not something that could easily be repeated in the MLP:FiM genre. Well, I suppose it could have been done, assuming the English-molesting material got past moderation. But ironic fics made for irony's sake have been done to a T in this fandom. So, whenever someone comes across a situation such as this, the best solution--in my opinion--is to be extra creative with the idea.
Thus, the original blueprint of a self-imploding fanfic was conceived. At first, I wanted to call it 6s & 7s, and the purpose of the story was to be odd, absurd, surrealist, and ultimately perplexing to all who read it. While this could have had a great deal of potential, I decided that it required way more intellect than I had the faculty to possess. I would later recycle the title for the playful, grammar-butchering April Fool's fic that I did in 2015, which still remains a joy for me to reread to this day. But I'll talk about that another time.
While pondering, I decided on a much more obvious hook. What if the story was full of typical fanfic tropes, but at least one of the characters was aware of it? Furthermore, what if she was not only aware... but being taken hostage by the fic itself? It would be like the Truman Show on steroids... just add horses. Imagine taking a single member of the canonical Mane 6 from the actual show and planting her in any fanfic whatsoever. Even in the subtlest story imaginable, I'm certain that the pony in question would realize that something was amiss... and take objection to what the brony author had done to alter the innate world-building.
This, of course, opened up an entire spectrum of possibilities. Getting in touch with my sadistic self, I decided to aim for the most appealing hook I could perceive: a dark one. Not only that, but a meta one.
I really, really lurve meta stuff. I dig creepypastas with fridge horror effects. I adore found footage horror movies... even when they're shitty. There's just something about cinematic and literary works that project an established reality for the audience, only to gradually deconstruct it so that there are more than four walls at play in the narrative. I love purposefully viral narratives and ARGs in concept. Yes, we all know that something we're observing is fake, but extra credit goes to the author/filmmaker who knows how to blur the line between reality and surreality, forcing people to use their heads harder. The best kind of creepy stories like to tickle that gland that the brain employs in differentiating between what's legit and what's mythological. When the creator can master this gray area, then I feel as though they're allowed to go nuts with it, screwing with our minds even further. It's like giving the viewer a wink with a third eye.
I've wanted to write a Lemur Rambles on .out.of.character. for a while now, but the one thing that finally got my lazy ass to get up and do it was discovering the online works of Alan Resnick. If you haven't seen some of the shiet he's worked on, go take a goddamn look:
Videos like these--creepy on the surface--actually have an entire rabbit's hole of gloriously convoluted subtext. This includes related websites that extend the narrative even further, adding expository backdrop and world-building to what would otherwise be confounding shock!horror. The videos themselves raise questions, and those who want answers are allowed to explore even further, being rewarded (at least in part) with a greater picture that encompasses the minimal portrait that attracted them to begin with. In the Information Age, this could very well be the ultimate way of providing entertainment to an online viewing audience.
I've always wanted to achieve something of this nature... a sort of golden goose egg that people would unexpectedly stumble upon, only to unfold an entire origami forest of fascinating horrors. For a short time in late 2013, I tickled this concept with something called Project Horizons. I even roped in over a dozen poor souls to share the madness. Those who may have partaken in that travesty can attest to the utter failure that is SS&E, and I don't blame you if you feel the urge to roll your eyes at anything I ever say or do from here on out.
And yet here I was in late 2014, with a killer concept blossoming in my head, and I wanted to achieve something on the meta level with this idea. It wasn't just enough to have a canonical character stuck in an out-of-character continuum. I needed to have a hook... something that would cast the spotlight not only on the story itself... but on the reader for engaging in it to begin with.
After all, if a story comes to life and turns predatory, are the characters the only ones suffering from it? Or do the readers and writers have a part to play? Exactly how many mad scientists are to blame for the birth of a cadaverous monster? We saintly anonymous denizens of the Internet claim to acknowledge the utterly detestable "filth" that is fanfiction... and yet we gladly devote so many hours of our monthly, weekly, and daily lives to this schlock. The analogy isn't very different from a shopper in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart bitching about how "evil" and "sucky" Wal-Mart is. So long as we congregate here on Fimfic, we're all guilty in some part for supporting the absurdities of fancanon... but just how many of us feel that guilt? Is there a way to bleed that organ and bring the juices to the surface of one's eyeballs? And, if so, is there a way to do this with malicious subtlety?
Alas, this was a challenge. One that I decided to take on with the new grimdark version of .out.of.character. The biggest challenge was finding a way for a plot-twist to function for both the reader and the protagonist involved. The solution came in realizing that the "plot," shouldn't matter at all. After all, if the fic has become a monstrous, living thing--then why would it delay in "feasting" on its narrative victim? If nothing else, it would do whatever it could to immediately ensnare the protagonist and digest her with melodramatic enzymes.
So, then, what if the actual plot itself was not a factor... but rather a byproduct? The center of the story should be the canonical character... the prisoner... the victim. Everything else should revolve around her, literally. Thus, with the absence of plot, the burden of relieving the character would fall on the reader... not the creator of the content itself.
It was from this idea that I decided that the story should--in essence--be a perpetual loop. It has no beginning and it has no end. If someone wanted to, they could read all 10 chapters of the story over and over again in succession without ceasing. The only reason to stop, then, would be the reader's choice. The goal then was to find a way to force the reader to stop... and then to make them feel guilty and responsible if they chose not to do so.
So that's when I decided that the "climax," so to speak, had to be something super disturbing... something that went on and on and on at absurd lengths... something that even I would not enjoy reading, much less writing. And, sure enough, as fate would have it, I came upon an idea. The problem was... ... ... I simply didn't want to write it, lulz.
As a result, while this story began being put together in October of 2014, I didn't actually upload it until mid December. It's one of the few occasions where I really... really believed in an idea that I thought was super awesome, but I simply lacked the nerve to get past a rather unsettling hump. Part of me felt that I had grown more cowardly since the Skirtsian grimdark days of 2011. The rest of me just... didn't want to write a scene where Rainbow Dash mounts Scootaloo, beats her to a pulp, then chews her flesh off while the filly gargles blood in front of the applauding citizens of Ponyville.
I've read Cupcakes. I know that it's an extreme example of gory fanfiction that was written for irony's sake during the primordial days of bronyism. From what I understand, there are lots and lots of nasty fics out there just like it. But, after having residually dabbled in the same sort of subject matter, I really can't fathom what would make people want to read or write that on a daily basis. Sure, I can be pretty sadistic, but dayum. In my defense, I only did what I did because I felt it would prove a point... or else have a unique meta sting.
And, as history would have it, it would appear as though I made my mark.
.out.of.character. is one of those wyrd examples of a story that's relatively hated or disliked upon release... but actually gets more appreciated over time. Don't get me wrong; it received a lot of downvotes when it first went up. But, like fine wine, it seems to have gotten better with age. One by one, as the months progressed, the reviews for this story grew denser... richer... and full of analytical thought. Every marsupial appeared to know that they had a cryptic puzzle at their tentacles, and they did their damned best to unlock its secrets. What's even better... more and more readers actually got it. I normally don't upvote or downvote on story comments, but I did so on this occasion. If you read .out.of.character. and your comment got at least one upvote, that was likely me "congratulating" yousa for getting the "twist" of the story. If you got a downvote... well... go back to Orgrimmar, n00b.
Alas, as of right now, the fic is actually a decently-rated story. It's hard to believe that at one point it had a ratio of 3:1 upvotes-to-downvotes. I think a lot of marsupials probably went back to give it a second look, and thus they found more depth to it than ever before.
Which is a good thing, because--aside from the twist at the end--there really isn't a whole lot of material to this story. To its fault, a bunch of the gaps are filled in with copious amounts of try-hard tropes and "sPoOoOoOoKiE sCaAaAaAaArY" haunted house bullshiet. At least I tried to incorporate the marsupial alumni into the mix. About two months prior to the fic's upload, I had made a blargh where I actively engaged the subscription base, asking readers to fill me in on what they thought were "stereotypes" of "grimdark," "ponifiction," and "Rainbow Dash characterization." I mostly did this because... f'naaaaaaa... I'm a sucky reader who hasn't actually consumed most of the notorious fanfics out there. Also, I wanted to incorporate the readers and make them feel as though they were part of an upcoming project. In a tangential way, this was opening their minds to a meta experience.
Unfortunately, they had to dwell on this cryptic blog for several weeks. Later, when .out.of.character. went up, a lot of the questions made sense... although in truth I only minimally incorporated the suggestions given. Still, it was really cool getting the readers to come up with so many facets of tropish fanfiction, and I think everyone enjoyed reading each other's in-depth suggestions as well.
In the end, I basically filled up most of the cracks with my own bullshiet. It was a fun exercise (aside from the ending, of course). You know it's a nifty thing when your very own writing spooks yourself (I refer specifically to the scene where Rainbow Dash spots a bunch of caribou assaulting a pony, but when she tries to say something, both the assailants and the victim stop dead to stare at her like soul-less subjects of an Inception dreamscape).
I also had a bit too much enjoyment writing the sequence inside the abandoned hotel... leading up to where Rainbow Dash discovers Lyra mutilating herself, which was a description I had visualized back in pre-Background-Pony 2012 while contemplating the Silent Ponyville side-fic. In fact, a really snazzy artist by the name of Luvlessi captured the moment. The pic is understandably unpleasant, so I'll just leave a link here for those brave enough to give it a glimpse.
It's worth giving a shout-out to Jake the Army guy. The Noble J00rist is one of my best pals in the brony community, and someone whom I trust dearly with story ideas. I knew if anyone would have the stomach to handle something as dark as .out.of.character., it would be him. So I asked if he wouldn't mind reading the story so that I could know whether or not it was worth uploading. He not only complied but was very helpful in his contributions. This was a good thing, because I'm relatively anxious when it comes to posting Rated M stories (except when I'm not), and it was great to receive his reassurance.
Seen here: reassurance
Now for some .out.of.character. trivia. I'm only sharing this because there's no way in fucking hell that anyone would ever get this on their own... because some shiet is just too cryptic to ever be put to good use. So if you want stuff to forever remain a mystery, or if you wanna look deeply at the chapter titles and magically figure out the "hidden message" on your own, then look no further.
Still with me? Alright. Here goes...
The "chapter titles" of .out.of.character. look like pure gibberish... almost as if a computer ate buckets of moonspeak and then shat it back out as textual diarrhea. On the surface, this makes some sense. The idea is that the fanfic is a living, ravenous creature... so it's not that much stranger to think that the data-script for the chapter titles got corrupted somehow and ultimately broadcasted as gobbledygook.
The truth is, the titles took a stupidly long time to conjure up. About two or three hours of annoyingly complicated attention, to be precise. How? And--to a much greater extent--why?
Well, let's look at the ten titles for a moment:
üâçëîÄæö
òùÖÜ¢¥ƒá
⌐½¡»░┤╖┼
┘▌ßΓΣτΘΩ
δ∞ε±≥⌠≈√
²Çë╚ì∞Σ½
èïÆ╞τΩ₧ç
─╕¥Éé╓≈▓
º╓Ω⌠ùæüµ
░╤≤ÑîƒêΘ
Super wyrd font, yes? Well, they're achieved through Alt Codes. Namely, you hold down the "Alt" key and hit a string of digits on your keyboard's right number pad between 0 and 255. For example, "Alt 1" is ☺. "Alt 2" is ☻. "Alt 253" is ². "Alt 254" is ■. If you look up a page that has the standard alt codes listed, you come up with a legend by which to identify the produced characters. With this in mind, let's look at Chapter One's title again:
üâçëîÄæö
Using the web page with the key, we can look up each individual character and figure out the numbers that are required to make them. For instance, ü is "Alt 129." â is "Alt 131" ç is "Alt 128" and so forth. If we continue this pattern with all of the character, we unlock a string of numbers in the text's place:
129 131 128 137 140 132 145 148
The eight characters are now replaced by eight three-digit numbers.
But what is the significance of this? A code, perhaps? Well, I'm no mathematician, so the solution is pretty straight-forward... if not obtuse.
It's not the value of the numbers that matter, but rather the digits. Let's add them together, shall we?
12 5 11 11 5 6 10 13
Great. Now we have another string of eight numbers. So what? Well... at the most basic level, how can you characterize the numbers into separate categories?
What about odds and evens?
Even Odd Odd Odd Odd Even Even Odd
Noticing a new, potentially exploitable pattern here? What are the lowest odd/even numbers in existence? Zeroes and Ones, of course. If we convert them, then we now have binary.
0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1
And what creative shiet can you do with binary? Why, find an online converter that can translate it into text, of course. That being said, Chapter 1 now consists of the right amount of eight digits to formulate a single letter:
Y
If you go back to Step One and laboriously repeat this process with all ten chapters, you come up with a binary code:
01111001
01101111
01110101
01100001
01110010
01100101
01100101
01110110
01101001
01101100
And just what does this translate to...?
Y
O
U
A
R
E
E
V
I
L
Thanks for reading
-SS&E
.........I want inside your mind.
If only for a day. Just to see it in action.
~Skeeter The Lurker
'Evil genius' is the only phrase I can use to describe this. And not in a silly cartoony way, I mean like, legitimately, the genius of how evil these ideas were is terrifying.
Well done.
Now to never read any of your dark fics (except the rabbit holes I've already fallen into of course).
Thankfully, I'm not the kind of person to read fics about kaizo suffering and madness (and certainly nothing M), so no guilt on my shoulders. Woot woot!
I look forward to your more positive genius ideas.
Those chapter titles...
You magnificent bastard...
3935951 You know not what you ask.
I think stuff like that, the sheer creativity and the brilliance of execution I see so many other authors do (not just you) is why i'm feeling meh about writing these days. Just the way people use a turn of phrase, or plan out massive plot twists in advance, or this or that... I just feel like I'm missing that spark, and I don't like seeing that missing in my writing. I still sit back in awe at those who can, though.
I wish I were this brilliant. Bravo, man. That's a feat most impressive.
HOLY SHIEEETTT!!! And I thought I was evil! That is dastardly deep coding right there! like Davinci code or somethin
*Quantum_Pony.exe hast crashed for the 5th time since reading this story*
Damn, that's just brilliant. I never would have found that on my own.
3936015
Oh yes I certainly do.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Oho, please remind us to give more creedance to your meta work with regard to easter eggs like these chapter titles. Top-tier work on that little puzzle.
That the parameters of our consensual illusion still permit your 'playful' rebellion is, in itself, an argument for optimism.
:lunastareunavailablebecauseknightyisalazyarse:
I do believe I'm getting into the spirit of things!
A very old story did a similar thing: trapping a self-aware canon pony in a trope-laden mlp fanfiction. Only instead of grimdark they trapped them in a romance story! They had a similar air of eerie surrealism to it that the protagonist rebelled against though
check it out:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8003380/1/A-Beautiful-Day-in-Equestria
...I'm not gonna lie, I am really damn impressed. That was crazy brilliant.
Truly, truly brilliant.
And also very ironic, considering I only just read this fic a couple weeks ago.
You have blown my mind with the chapter titles. I definitely thought they were just gibberish to help with the eerie feel... but no. Damn. @_@
You magnificent bastard.
Wow. I read the story a couple months ago. I don't quite remember, but I'm pretty sure I took a little break from reading fanfiction aftwards. Thanks for the explination and all the effort you put into the story.
I feel there's a Undertale/Spec ops: The line joke in here somewhere.
As to Cupcakes and similar dreck...
Cupcakes from what I vaguely remember starts off as a story, but then just drags it out into gore porn for pages. It doesn't accomplish anything, it doesn't advance a plot. It's a record skipping until the literary equivalent of fixing the needle takes place.
Imagine what Raiders of the lost Ark would have been like if the famous box opening scene lasted for 15 minutes, with slow motion closeups of all the Nazis and whatnot being melted alive. Then imagine what it would be like if that scene was the entire movie. All that would happen is that we'd be down a Indiana Jones film in favor of junk. Or a comedy, but still not quality.
Fortunately, what we have is the film we all know and love, which has said scene, but keeps it concise and to the point, then gets on with the story.
I had a point in here somewhere, I dunno.
I'm not one to go out of my way to read grim-dark fics, I just read it because you posted it. It was uncomfortable, yes, but engaging. The more I read, the more I wanted to see what happened next, and that always makes it a winner in my book. And I love the twist. Recursions are always acceptable. (that's my way of putting it).
That chapter title puzzle. Bless you SS&E.
Also, as one of the people who "got it" much later on and gave it a thoughtful review
, it's real satisfying to see how this fic came about. I can definitely see the inspiration for the way the scenes play out in the fic, now that you point it out.
The only winning move is not to play.
The return of the BAKAWW Scootaloo derp face from S3's Bad Seed episode was a most welcomed surprise in that episode. Shame the rest didn't include more Scootaloo and Dash doing cute things together, Wonderbolt episode. I mean, dude... was I the only one who thought Scootaloo was going to fall off that precariously high (probably 3 feet off the ground for all we know) perch on the cliff? Scootaloo I guess could slow her fall like a chicken maybe but still... COME ON RAINBOW! That was hilarious oversight material right there, and yet, the writer did nothing to capitalize on it!
Oh well, yeah. Totally off-topic as usual. lol
derpicdn.net/img/2016/5/9/1149757/large.gif
"Wonderbolt Tradition #2, Proving Your Loyalty."
Alternate Ending
derpicdn.net/img/2016/5/8/1148921/large.jpeg
Amazing how that one gif you post at the very end completely manages to derail my train of thought. But seriously, how did we not get an episode like this?
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/5/8/1149237__safe_rainbow+dash_clothes_scootaloo_food_sunglasses_jacket_scootalove_newbie+dash_spoiler-colon-s06e07.png
Thanks for writing this. I was very impressed with this fic when it came out and it is one of the few that really sticks out as something truly unusual in my mind thanks to how good a job you did with the surreal/meta elements so it is interesting to learn more about the thought process behind it and the little details you hid like that chapter title code.
Also, since you asked why people would read the pointless gore fics, I find them hilarious. They usually get to the point where it is so over the top that it just becomes funny (I have heard the term "splatstick" used to describe this). When this is done right, there is no emotional meaning to them and no real attempt to do anything but crank it up to 11 to get you laughing at how absurd the whole thing is with no pretenses that it is anything but a joke, and the result can be absolutely hilarious if you have the stomach for it. It isn't an every day thing because any form of comedy gets old quick if you repeat it too much in a short period of time, but it is still fun from time to time.
Do you sleep?
I really liked this one, and the only fic I've read that was more disturbing was The Time of Her Life, and only by a little bit.
Also, that number code made my jaw drop. I'm sure you put more thought into that than some put into their entire stories.
I love this fic for what it is, but GOD AS MY WITNESS I WILL NEVER READ IT AGAIN IN MY LIFE! One cycle was enough. I won't make any of them suffer again.
The binary titles, you sly fox
Upon seeing this, part of me wants to go back to re-read out.of.character. The rest of me, however, is vehemently screaming "No!" at that small part of me.
I will never get that ending out of my mind. Fantastic story for sure, but it's one of those things that I don't think I can manage to read again.
Erm, I just found something rather curious...
If whilst watching the first video (the one with the bear, heh), you click on the fake "Skip Ad" box, you will be taken to a fake promotion on the adultswim site. Now click on the house in the background several times (it will get closer each time). Eventually you'll be dropped into some sort of ARG point and click game thing (compleat with inventory). Once inside the house, go down to the basement and into the bedroom at the foot of the stairs, where you will find this...
dropbox.com/s/9pngaeejqx962vu/Screenshot%20from%202016-05-11%2019%3A05%3A09.png?raw=1
Skirts, Skirts!!!!!......how deep does this rabbit hole go?
To be honest, the thing that makes me hooked up to your writing is the philosophical thingy. Background Pony, End of Ponies, Last Tears on Tartarus are my favorite. But, Dream Seed is one of your philosophical fanfic that didn't necessarily need sadness or torture to be deep. Don't get me wrong, I love your other writing too. The Things Tavi Says is stellar. I even love your slice of life like Friendship is Wet, and that one that watching a boring baseball match. As for now I'm reading your Appledashery before I'm going to bed and still need to catch up.
So yeah, I really wish once in a while you go back to write some philosophical stuff again. But this time with more sunshine and rainbow
Anyway, I always thought that the chapter name is just a random crud. So, can you tell us about the word disappearing order in Refraction?
Btw I literally got a goosebump when that binary code make a sentence.
I want to say this.
While I want to read through that chapter again, I AM NOT READING PUTTING RD THROUGH THAT AGAIN.
Nope.
Well played SS and E. This is why we follow you.
I love me some circular puzzles, and convoluted links (usually for bad puns), but seriously, that number thing was just too much work!
Still loved the story though.
I'm a little too jaded and desensitized to stop reading at the end, but I felt the intent, which was great!
Then again, I'll willing to sit through horrible grammar, or start fics long since cancelled, just enjoy a bit of story.
3936754 And so you keep on trying...
... mindlessly replying...
You've been trolled, you've been trolled...
Have a nice daaaaaaaay!
If I recall correctly, Flair recently was in a bar before going on a flight back home after being in his daughter, Charlotte's, ring corner at a recent WWE Pay Per View. Question mark question mark happened (and probably some drunken flailing) and then Flair had a minor head injury with people standing around all confused like.
Damn. Flair's still got some quick and keen blading instincts in his old age, eh?
Damn, I've been missing out by not checking out these ramblings.
I'm curious though: if all that mattered was whether or not the alt-codes were even or odd, was there anything that made you choose those even/odd numbers in particular?
Either way, consider me amazed.
Skirts, metafiction is cool, but you're starting to get caught up in the kind of mind-wankery that people who can't write stories push, to try to convince themselves and other people that they can. You can write stories.
3942425 I've never been very convinced of the coolness of metafiction.
3946755 Well, try
A) Jorge Lois Borges, especially "The Quixote of Pierre Menard" and "The Library of Babel",
B) Skywriter's "Shipping Sickness", "Hoardsmiths",
C) Don Quixote,
D) Tristam Shandy,
E) my "Happy Ending", only actually it kinda sucks, but you can see what I was trying to do,
F) Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings",
G) my "Big Mac Reads Something Purple", maybe,
H) my story "Anonymous Dreams" when it comes out.
I concede that metafiction tends to get published for being metafiction more than for being good, so it has low quality on average.
3947003 Borges and Don Quixote stand out there (haven't read yours) in that there was an actual story there. House of Leaves was straight up metafiction and I loved it. But the vast majority of what I've encountered has been masturbatory at best. YEs, yes, I get how clever you are, writing fiction about fiction. Except writing something that only passes for fiction because I don't know what else to call it passing as fiction is just... I feel like there wasn't even a point in reading it in the first place. My time has been wasted. Ha, gotchya, that's it. No show, no substance.
I don't know how you managed to make me love .out.of.character. more than I did before, but you did and I appreciate that. It was a phenomenal piece of metafiction, and those chapter titles really do it justice.