A Wolf in Goku's Skin

Dear readers, welcome to Earth. Earth is a beautiful planet, filled with wonders of nature awaiting you at every step: be it vast deserts, lush forests, endless oceans. What's better, though, is that among all those beautiful sights, there are countless more magnum opera: humans. Each and every human is different, yet they gather in communities and form relationships. Together, they achieve more than nature ever could, yet it was nature that created them.

Let's take a moment to examine two such miracles.

Meet Jane. She's 19 years old and lives in Portland. She's just a normal girl. Frequents High School, where she meets all her friends and has fun getting into all sorts of crazy wild adventures! However there's all the teachers standing in the way of endless fun! That's why she's got to study hard. Lucklily, she's quite smart, and can always count on her best friends to help her out. They always ace all the tests but those all-nighters can be a real chore!

School life is exhausting. Every day Jane wakes up early, barely manages to catch the bus (It's always crowded. She wishes those old ladies wouldn't be so mean.) and then it's eight hours of class. And talking with her friends, and chatting up boys, and taking tests... Hardest of all, she needs to be on her toes at all time! She never knows when _that kid_ might be around. Even his smell makes her nauseous!

That's why evenings are Jane's "Me Time". Very tired, she slowly climbs the stairs to her room, kicking off her red Converse's on the way. Head hung down, her golden hair flowing down her face and on her sagging shoulders, she pushes the door open and collapses on her bed adorned with Hello Kitty sheets. Several minutes pass, during which the less-clever observer might think Jane has passed out! Moments later springs to life, good as new. She gets her iPhone out of the pocket of her blue, slightly torn jeans and replaces the white earbuds with her favorite pair of studio Sennheisers. Soon, she's completely immersed in the world of music.  Her  music. She lets herself get carried by the soothing melodies of Tom Waits and Kaizers Orchestra. Then, she kicks her pastel-colored knee-high stockings-clad legs up in the air as the rousing rhytms of Red Fang, Clutch or some electronic bands (You've probably never heard of them. Dark chip psy? Thought so.) fill her with new-found energy.

Such infatuation with music lasts a few hours. During that time Jane clears her head, rests and relaxes. Then it's back to the real world for a few minutes as dinner is ready and mom desperately needs to know about her grades. Thank God she's on a diet currently and the meals are very brief!

In her room again, she fires up the computer. Time to check Facebook and extend the cheer and merriment to the virtual world! Nice glasses, Tina. This shirt really suits you. Cool pic Andy! That must have been a wild  party. Oh my God! That cat is just the cutest. Hours quickly pass and soon the orange blaze spills over the cold, solid skies of Oregon, illuminating her upstairs room with an amber light. Being an artistically-inclined soul, Jane always thought this made the place look like an old sepia photo. She swore to herself that if she ever starts her own electronic band, she'll use the pictures of such scenes as album covers.

Jane can barely whistle, much less make music.

But there's more to Jane than meets the eye. A layer of depth to the perky, fun-loving girl we've come to know and love in the past few minutes it took you to read so far.

You see, Jane loves  Anime.


That bookshelf in her room isn't filled with novels, but rather DVD cases of Anime. Every series you can name, she has seen and owns at least one season of. Dragon Ball Z, Death Note, Keion, Strike Witches, Akira, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop... She loves Anime because of the stories it tells: much more different, more varied and sophisticated than western media that's all love or crime. For the freedom of expression animation grants: all those pretty, colorful outfits, the amazingly fluid scenes. And of course, the factor of exoticism. Japan is a land unlike her own, where the culture is entirely different. People look different, dress different, speak different. Eat different food. Cities look different. Animals and plants are different. She's in love with cherry trees and narrow, neon-sign filled streets of Japanese cities.

Naturally, she often wonders what would it be like to be just like one of her Japanese animes. To replace her pedestrian life with that of magic and wonder, quests to save the world and superhuman abilities. Imagine her surprise when she one day found out that there are entire communities devoted to doing just that! It's called cosplay, and it pretty much means that you dress up as your favorite characters and pretend to be them. Cosplayers then meet up at conventions and have tons of fun playing their make believe. Already having a keen sense of style, a preference for vibrant colors and lots of fluttering fabric, Jane felt right at home in the cosplay scene. She quickly made a name for herself at the local cosplay forums, posting pictures of herself in finely-crafted outfits. She looked really good in Haruhi's schoolgirl uniform, and herself in Rei's evangelion jumpusit was a sight to see! Making the costumes was tons of fun. She spent countless evenings thinking up how to transform everyday clothing articles into exotic suits, as well as going through with her plans and then taking pictures of herself in her own creations. It was a great way to channel her artistic abilities.

Her friends weren't as passionate about dressing up though. She mentioned it in passing once or twice, and upon seeing their nonplussed reactions, dropped the subject. She kept her hobby to herself and her internet friends, which were always very supportive, but ultimately she couldn't relate to them. She's met some of them at several conventions and they seemed like very nice people, but it was kinda hard talking to them as they kept drifing in and out of character. What surprised her was that most of them were male. Some of them still dressed up as female characters! Jane decided to play it off as a joke and not think too hard about this.

She didn't want to seem intolerant, after all.

Last year she went as Osaka from Azumanga Daioh! It was great fun, many people recognized her character and wanted to take pictures, played with her and complimented her on her costume. Most of them didn't even notice she was wearing a wig! Soon after, she saw one of her pictures on a "geek blog". She was proud at first, but then she saw the comments section. This wasn't the kind of attention she was looking for...













...she shouldn't have dressed this way then! Vapid cunts. He couldn't believe how brainless some of those broads were. Women, I tells ya. Can't trust them wit anything.

The feeble glare from the monitor illuminating his pockmarked face twisted in a grimace, John shoveled another Pizza Roll into his mouth and swiftly chased it down with a swig of Miller's High Life. He shouldn't drink his much. He'd rather be in full control of his mental faculties, and he still remembers that time at his first communion when the priest dipped the wafers in wine. His head hurt for three days straight. He's atheist now. Take that mom, try telling Carl Sagan that Santa won't bring him Persona 4 if he doesn't go to mass or clean his fingernails.

John has just read a public response of one "JaneSuzumiyaTan". She was thankful for all the compliments regarding her cosplay outfit, but appaled at the sheer _sleaziness_ that the comments emanated. John just thought that it was obvious that she was actively seeking attention and subjecting herself to the male gaze by dressing in such a revealing way. Besides, she got the headband wrong and the smiley-face pin didn't appear on Osaka's shirt until season 3, which obviously the outfit wasn't from, as evident by the blue sneakers she got in the episode "Ning's Big Score".

He knew that episode by heart. As he did every other.

John often called himself an "otaku". It was the Japanese equivalent of the word "nerd", except for some reason John decided to brand himself with such a name willingly. He often corrected bullies when they teased him. Saying that they are too plebean to understand his sophistication. They didn't seem too bothered with his display of greatness though. After pulling a prank on him, they wondered why he spoke with a Brooklyn accent, despite being from down here. He did wear a fedora, but it didn't match up with the rest of his clothing (usually cargo pants and a shirt with one of them girl cartoons on it). He was also neither a wise guy nor a tough guy.  And so, despite his pleas and threats, they did not stop calling him Johnny Wedgieface. A goodfella he wasn't.

John didn't let all the teasing stop him, though. He was too good for those people. They just didn't understand him.  Being the Deadpan Snarker that he is, he swiftly shot down all the people ridiculing him, but they seemed to not get it! Perhaps it is true that people are immune to things they don't know about. His passionate The Reason You Suck Speeches had also little to no effect, even those that weren't interrupted by a punch.

John hated being touched.

Luckily for John, there was always another world he could retreat into when the real one got just too mean. A world where he was loved for who he was and his qualities made him valuable to those around him. The world of anime fandom. He first came into contact with anime by a site called TvTropes. The site was a community of people deconstructing media in a wiki-like format. Pointing out the common themes, misconceptions implanted into society via those media, and discussing them. This is what attracted John to TvTropes in the first place. The air of sophistication and superiority emanating through every article. John felt really clever recognizing all the "tropes" in movies and books, even though people with whom he shared his observations weren't as passionate about them.

It wasn't long before John discovered the second part of TvTropes. The so-called Troper Tales. They were short stories in which the site users told of tropes and movie-like situations happening in their lives. Whether it was someone describing his Badass Longcoat or talking about how he's a Jerk With a Heart of Gold, John could always relate to those stories and found them really believeable. Eventually he started writing his own. And so, that time when he threw a pencil at Brad for getting called out on drawing an anime became John's affinity for Impromptu Weapons: Pencils. He called his everyday outfit of combat boots, black JNCOs and a blackt-shirt with his zodiac sign (Aquarius) on it Tall, Dark and Loathsome. Many of his everyday social encounters (which weren't plentiful in themselves, much less those that didn't result in bullying) turned into Crowning Moments of Awesome, in which John always came victorious, leaving his adversaries to pick their jaws off the ground as he sauntered away, not looking behind his shoulder.

Soon, other "Tropers" started commenting on how cool he was, applauding him for his actions and cheering him on. The rabbit hole grew.

John started believing that he was indeed very menacing and nobody interacted with him because they found him threatening. He no longer dragged his feet when walking the corridors. Now he kept his chin high, a few pube-like hairs swaying in the breeze and with the irrational motions of his weird, sorta fucked up gait, as Frankie called it. After all, so many people on the internet couldn't possibly be wrong about him, could they?

What surprised him was that they even agreed with his views, which nobody ever did. Claiming to be Born In The Wrong Century, John vehemently protested women wearing jeans and men wearing anything other than three-piece suits or casual clothing. He was an avid Men's Rights Activist, insisitng that all women want is to get pregnant and force men into marrying them so they could live off them like leeches. That's why never talked to girls, you see. They could always cry "Rape" and get him convicted, effectively ruining his reputation!

Only women that didn't reject him after looking at him for more than three seconds were the girls in his beloved anime. Especially Osaka from Azumanga Daioh! He fell in love with her carefree, friendly attitude. He went so far as to proclaim her his "waifu", effectively claiming her as his own. Needless to say, he was extremely outraged when he saw a 3D Pig dress up as her and post pictures of it on the internet. Worst of all, he had a feeling he's seen her somewhere...

„Why would one say that? Cosplays are a very welcoming thing. I've seen good cosplays, I've seen bad. But everyone has a good time and as long as you keep yourself confident, no one will notice. Cosplay is about having fun. You get to romp around a pretend your someone else. :] If someone makes a rude comment, brush it off and tell yourself that they haven't twice a mind of knowing what fun is all about.” Yeah, right. Look buddy, if you're gonna do cosplay, do it right or don't do it at all. Have some standards fer Christ's sake! People like you are ruining the fandom. It used to be people who passionately cared about the anime, not weekend otakus. I made the Azumanga Daioh! Scene in this state! Before I came in here it was just dust and dirt! And I will not stand to see it fall.

Fuming, John hid his face in his hands. He was breathing heavily.

You see, it meant everything to him.

That night, he slept restless. Twisting and turning on his sweet steampunk futon, kicking up a cloud of orange-tinged dust with every move. At night, strange thoughts marred his mind. Thoughts he'd never even consider entertaining under normal circumstances. He actually thought of approaching...Jane, was it? Yeah, Jane...approaching and confronting her about her _faux pas_.  But what about his hikkikomori status? Could he stand to call himself a Celibate Hero after such...such disgrace? What if she'll consider his stern reprimand (Reason You Suck Speech) sexual harrasment? So many things could go wrong, yet John decided that next day he will go through with his plan. For Osaka. For his waifu.


And so,  a new day has risen. The sun slowly climbed over the horizon, spilling its warm embrace over the world. Jane welcomed the morning. Full of energy, she sprung up from her bed, taking note of her wild bedhead reflected in the window. It was time to get ready for school. Don't want to keep her friends waiting at the bus stop! John, however, was much less enthusiastic. Grumbling, he covered himself up with the sweaty sheets. Twenty minutes have passed before he crawled out of his bedding. His eyes were glued together with rheum and he was coughing heavily, trying to get the mucus out of his throat. Frak, he thought, mom's minivan is already out of the garage. It's gonna be a long day...

The bus ride was great as usual! It was Monday, so there weren't many people around so early. Jane and her friends always loved seeing the busdriver scold passengers for even the slightest annoyances. It was like a comedy movie at times. On the bus, they checked each other's homework and filled in the blanks where nercessary. Taking her eyes off the math notebook, Jane saw a minivan overtake the bus. Inside, she spotted a boy in the backseat. He looked familiar...
The ride was horrible as usual. Mom kept pestering John with questions. Yes mrs Yonderbrack, he did his homework. He ate his breakfast. He brushed his teeth. John was staring out the window. He could barely take it. It's such a shame his PTSD and astigmatism prevent him from ever getting a driver's license. Not that his mom would ever buy him a car, all she ever spent money on was book club and booze.  John hoped to develop a rivalry between himself and her, like in his favorite webcomic, Homestuck, but his plan was cut short when he got grounded for making an empty suicide threat.

Finally, they arrived at school. Exiting the minivan, John begrudgingly gave his mom a kiss on the cheek. He thought he heard distant snickering. He was used to that anyways. Out of the corner of his eye he saw three girls approaching the school's main entrance. What were they so happy about? How could someone possibly enjoy high school, John thought. It's the time where everyone's hormones take control over his mind and they turn into hyperactive, disobedient monkeys. Thank god John was asexual, or else he'd give in to such impulses. Well, he did...please himself regularly, but it was just for biological reasons. John started to walk towards the entrance, taking time to pace himself to let the girls walk in through first. Slight social nuances were never his strong suit. Then he remember the oath he swore last night. To defend the honor of his waifu. He took a deep breath and quickened his pace.

Jane turned around for a second, and saw that weird kid walk in her direction. He was sternly glaring at her, but when their eyes met he hung his head down. No doubt he was approaching her with the intent of talking to her, so she stopped. Finally, he was within arm's reach from her, evident by this sickly, pungent smell and the air around him distorting slightly.

„Yeah? What's up?
„You...I saw your pictures...uh...Gameblouguu...uhhh...you were...you...you-”

John suddenly stopped stuttering and his eyes opened wide. He sprung up, straightening his posture and let forward a torrent of orange-gray puke, making disgusting sounds all the while absolutely slathering Jane in the vile mucus. With one last cough, he passed out. Jane stood, frozen. Seemingly, only sounds were drips of vomit dripping from her body on the ground.

„He..he puked on me.”

The gravity of the situation hit her like a brick wall. Succumbing to the only sensible relation, she bent over and retched all over John's limp body, already stained with his own secretions. Wet sounds echoed, carried by the brisk morning air. Jane stood, blinking.