Cross Talk #1: Metrophanes and Simon

A weird promotion

I’ve been planning to do crossovers between my own work for a long while, and with the upcoming publication of A Marriage of Body and Soul this Thursday I wanted to try more creative and fun ways of sharing my excitement for it. So I hope you enjoy this comedic little extra outside the normal posting schedule.

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Somewhere between worlds, between the pages of books, behind the stage of any story, is a place known as the Crossroads. Sometimes it is a bar the unsuspecting wander into for an impossible chance encounter. This time it was the stage of a talk show.

“Good day, and welcome to Cross Talk. I’m your host, Obsidian Cross, you can call me Cross for short.” A man stood on stage, making a grand bow to his audience and the cameras. He was dressed in a formal suit, with a top hat over his long black hair. His gloves were dark red with yellow finger tips and a yellow heart symbol on each palm. Looking at his eyes will only show your own, on account of his reflective rounded black glasses.

Once the applause of the audience died down, Obsidian Cross continued his introduction. “Today we’ll be talking to two characters from the author’s work, Metrophanes, hailing from the most recent story of Battles Beneath the Stars, and Simon, the protagonist of the upcoming story A Marriage of Body and Soul.” 

With a snap of Cross’s fingers, the guests appeared in comfortable lounge chairs. The first, Metrophanes, looked how he does in Battles Beneath the Stars, a man of a race with black scales and claws dressed in a purple robe.

The other guest, Simon, was a young and meek looking human man, who adjusted his glasses unconsciously in response to the summon. He immediately put his cane behind the chair where it’d be out of sight.

“You could have warned us we were going to be teleported in,” Metrophanes complained. Simon voiced his agreement.

“It’s funnier this way. ” Cross dropped down in his own chair opposite to his guests. “So, how does it feel to be the first guests on this show?”

“Well, I do appreciate having an audience without a history of booing me. But as a character from a fantasy world I’m not clear on how this will go,” Metrophanes said.

“It’s great to have all the effort put into promoting my story. But I’m still not sure what to say and not say about it, since it isn’t even published yet.” Simon sighed. “But I definitely wanted to keep one thing secret that you already exposed to the readers.”

“Well then we’ll focus on Metrophanes first, because you in the audience already had your chance to read his story. So Metrophanes, how have things been since the end of your story where you won the tournament.”

Metrophanes took his time to think of how to answer. “Returning to Photens was a relief after how hectic the Grand Festival was, it renewed my appreciation of the small village life. People there are proud of my victory, and happy to watch my puppet plays once more.”

“And Drakon’s parents? They’re never named, are they even real characters? Or are they as much of an empty unnamed plot device as Fintan’s dead wife?” Cross laughed to himself. 

“No they’re actual characters.” Metrophanes took a second to consider his next words, then hesitantly continued. “It’s a shame Gaiene and Sotiris were excluded from the story, but we’re already one of the most represented groups of characters in Battles Beneath the Stars and have plenty of backstory to convey, so I do understand wanting to cut down on the named characters.”

“Wait we’re allowed to name things not named in our stories?” Simon asked.

“This is a fourth wall breaking crossover event, why not?” Cross shrugged. “I prefer stories that keep the fourth wall intact, but the whole point of this is to bridge the latest bit of fiction on The Warthog Report to the next, we may as well be honest about it. Speaking of which, Metrophanes, things are so intricate with your posse because you’re from an unpublished novel, right?”

“Unpublished until a certain someone gets around to the next drafts and further work, yes. I’m hopeful that Battles Beneath the Stars will help make people interested in seeing the full story around us. It’d add more context to our appearances there.”

“Yeah you’re only competing with the rest of Battles Beneath the Stars, Fintan and Aodh’s short story, the portal fantasy follow up to The Final Mantra, the Dracula sequel featuring Tezcatlipoca, who I am an aspect of, the comedy about Ra and Tezcatlipoca, who I am an aspect of, fighting over some guy, the fighting game about robots based on deities, including Tezcatlipoca, who I am an aspect of, various fanfiction, and erotica that won’t be published here. And others I don’t have time to list.” Cross smirked.

“Well people already seem to like Hyperion, and it is The Saga of Hyperion. It’d also fit the serial format quite well with its short chapters. Though I’d be a little embarrassed for people to see my villainous past first hand.”

“Ah yes, I hear in the first draft your evil plan made so little sense the author had to go for the explanation that you were simply that stupid.”

Metrophanes groaned. “It was written for an event about writing a novel in one month, hasty writing decisions came with the territory. But I’d rather not talk about that period of my life or point in the creative process.”

“Alright then.” Cross leaned back in his chair. “So, do you think you’ll make a puppet play about your time in the tournament?”

“No, the last thing I want is to put on plays about myself.” Metrophanes realized he had become too aggressive, leaning forward with a raised voice. He went back to a more neutral position and relaxed tone. “It has me pondering making plays about tales from other lands however. Vulture Shah is content just to revisit the usual material with his fellow puppets for now. But when the times comes I may visit Nisha’s library for new material.”

“Maybe you can write one about Tezcatlipoca some time. Now, do you have any advice for the latest protagonist?” Cross gestured to Simon.

“Try not to fixate on a single goal to the exclusion of all else. And it will be easier for the author to get excited about you if you get other people to talk about your story.”

Simon chuckled nervously. “Uh, that first one is kind of relevant to my own story. Is the author okay?”

“Probably not. Now, tell us about your own story since it isn’t published yet.”

“Oh, well it’s about me and Beleth, a demon I summoned, and our relationship. The focus is more on what happens after the summoning than the work of summoning him. So it’s a romance, well uh technically we get married pretty early on, but that doesn’t make everything smooth out instantly.” Simon tapped his fingers against the armrest of his chair.

“Rumor has it yours will be the kinkiest story published on the Warthog Report yet. Which I think is breaking new ground with how sexless the other couples have been. Aodh probably doesn’t even know what sex is-”

“I know what sex is!” Aodh shouted from the audience. Fintan tugged on his arm to get him to sit back down.

“-Quiahuitl and Nisha both seem too busy to have any despite having multiple husbands, Badin died about two or so paragraphs in to The Final Mantra, and Hákon, okay Hákon and Runa seem like they might fuck, but does anyone other than the author like Hákon? How does that comparison make you feel?”

“I mean, there’s not a sex scene or anything. But, a lot of the story is about the physical and the spiritual. So there’s stuff about the body and, uh, physical intimacy in ways that aren’t having sex, like kissing. But sex is discussed.”

“And are those themes why you’re the first character on the Warthog Report to need a cane for mobility?”

Simon clenched his fists and glared. “Don’t talk about me like that. I’m nobody’s role model or representation or whatever. I am not getting the ‘first gay Disney character’ treatment. The author wrote me to have some of his feelings about his own condition, but he made a point of making mine something completely different.”

“Okay, we’ll highlight your horniness instead, like how you’re the first Warthog Report character confirmed to have looked at porn.”

“I’d actually prefer being known as the horny guy to being the guy with a cane. But honestly Beleth is the really horny one in my opinion.”

“That’s not how I read the story,” Metrophanes said.

Simon was silent.

“Moving on from Simon being a little freak,” Cross began, “his story originally had a different title. Care to tell us about that, or should we expose your kinks and fetishes in detail?”

Simon sighed again. “It was originally called Demonology 2.0 because I made a computer program to summon demons, and because the author couldn’t think of a good title to cleverly mark it as a story inspired by the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. Part of the original idea came from wanting to do a sort of tribute to it.”

“And why the title change now?”

“Well the author realized the story was more interesting when focused on what happened after I summoned Beleth, so my method for summoning him wasn’t the thing he wanted to highlight with the title anymore. The story has changed a bit since then, back when it had to be ten pages in Microsoft Word for submission to a campus literary magazine. In those days I didn’t need a cane or have any kind of disability.”

“I’m surprised the cane is a recent addition, it comes off as rather central to your characterization now.” Metrophanes looked towards the cane in question.

“I can see why, for a story about the physical and spiritual it’d make sense to explore physical conditions and their impact on someone’s sense of self.” Cross straightened his glasses.

“Yeah yeah, I still miss when I didn’t need a cane. Though Beleth won’t like hearing me say that.”

“You know I’m surprised I don’t see him in the studio audience over in the VIP area.” Cross gestured to the off-screen audience.

“He doesn’t have a body, that’s a big thing with demons in our setting. They normally only get a physical form when summoned, but since I did mine on a computer we traded that for not having any time limit,” Simon exposited.

“Oh didn’t that visual novel the author made, Lovely Spirits, have something similar with its demons?” Metrophanes asked.

“That’s because we’re in the same wider world as it, not that it’s relevant to either of our stories. We could just as easily be in different worlds with similar rules, there’s nothing in either story outright saying we share a setting so it could change. So you don’t need to play Lovely Spirits to get my story, it’s just like a spiritual predecessor or something.” Simon spoke hastily and made an x with his arms. Cross chuckled at the phrase ‘spiritual predecessor.’

“But if you want to it’s free!” Someone in the crowd, most certainly not a character from Lovely Spirits, shouted.

“With quality to match, it’s practically just a rough prototype for Simon’s story.” Cross ducked under a rock that went in an arc over his head. “Who did that and why did you bring a fucking rock with you to a talk show.” Cross and his guests all paused when they noticed a stand had been set up in the back of the theater, offering rocks to throw on stage for a dollar each. “Special celebrity guest from Norse Mythology and also one of the author’s other stories Odin, why are you selling rocks here? You don’t even have a permit.”

“To keep you on your toes. Now get back to the show,” Odin shouted from the back. He handed Aodh a rock. 

“The craziest thing about this is that people are paying a whole dollar for a rock. Also I don’t agree with what Obsidian Cross said about Lovely Spirits.” Simon eyed the crowd nervously. Someone lifted up a sign clarifying they weren’t planning to aim at Simon. 

“I know. Rocks are an important part of nature, selling them for that cheap is disrespectful.” Metrophanes made a disapproving sound as he extended and retracted his claws. “Though the act of selling them is already disrespectful if it wasn’t negotiated with its spirit first, so I suppose the price doesn’t matter as much.”

“We’re getting off track. Just try to ignore the rocks, they’re all aimed at me anyway because people don’t like how the author made me embody Tezcatlipoca’s function of revelatory mockery. ” Cross stood up from his chair to more easily dodge the rocks. “Anyway, you know what I find more suspicious than the rocks in the audience? That Simon is from a fictional city that has a name when it could have easily been unnamed.”

“Apparently the author has some ideas of future stories in the same city, so he wanted to lay the groundwork to make it recognizable. Though since it hasn’t been written out yet I don’t know what any of those plans are.” Simon shrugged. “Our short story is complete and has a satisfying ending if you ask me, but there are things I’d like a sequel to cover. If it ever happens, I’ll be fine if it doesn’t.”

“It will happen eventually, we just need to be patient. The author can only balance so many serials and short stories at a time. For now we should just celebrate your publication.” Metrophanes said.

“That’s right. Thank you.”

“Aww that’s wholesome. I thought the rocks were about to lead to a more slapstick ending to this. Like rocks being thrown at me after I try to get under Simon’s skin by saying that all gay men are submissive and cry a lot due to being more feminine.” Cross noticed certain members of the audience were standing up. Specifically every character whose sexual activity or likability Cross had casted doubt on. Others joined them after the recent comment. “There it is.” 

Rocks fell upon Cross like arrows. After dodging a few he got knocked to the floor and the rocks kept coming.

Simon and Metrophanes exchanged a look, then got up from their chairs. Metrophanes picked up Simon’s cane for him. “Hey Metrophanes, can I get two tickets for one of your plays? I’m looking for new hobbies so I’m interested in giving the theater a try. The other ticket is for Beleth.”

“Sure.” The two walked off-stage together. 

Meanwhile Obsidian Cross died of having rocks thrown at him. Then another Obsidian Cross stepped on stage and walked over his own corpse. “Yeah dying isn’t that big of a deal when you’re a fictional aspect of a genuine Aztec deity. That’s all for now folks.”