Hybrid Theory
is a million-word-plus Dual Self-Insert Mega Crossover Fanfiction Deconstruction series written by Blade and Epsilon of C&A Productions. It can be read on their website with easy access to behind the scenes information and a character guide, both of which are spoiler heavy, or at fanfiction.net
Following their unlikely death at the hands of someone who wrote a stopped truck out of existence and replaced it with one going full-speed, two fanfic writers wake up in a world compiled from various manga, anime, games and a relatively normal Earth, circa 1992... a world that exists despite the completely unreconciled backstories many of these sources carry with them...
Aaron (Epsilon) is bound to a living side character from Ranma ½ named Ukyou Kunoji as a voice, a ball of chi, and a set of skills inside her head. Their emotions and habits often conflict with each other, causing bouts of rage and nausea. Especially in the beginning, they wake to seizures every morning as their body forcibly combines different sets of their childhood memories into a generic mishmash.
Chris (Blade) is trapped as a parasitical spirit that can only inhabit corpses, usually ones he makes himself. Each skill and memory that belonged to his current host that he actively invokes or peruse will carry forward to the next body, however, any that he doesn't inspect while he has the chance will be lost forever. His presence stops normal decay, replacing it with a process that dissolves the host body from the inside out. Any action, even walking, chips away at the body's existence. Fighting just makes it happen a lot faster.
They're set on a collision course as the world warps around them, each carrying within them a source of energy that often darkens their morality and decisions, one that most of the psychics they meet believe might end all existence...
This isn't even exactly their story. Most of the action revolves around characters from Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon and Rival Schools as they live their lives and take sides in a galaxy beset by heroes, apocalypse-bringers and monsters of many, many forms.
Please use the cast page for character-specific tropes. The page also contains a relatively complete list of the crossovers involved.
Beyond having the band's songs as source material for chapter titles and such, this fanfic has no relation to the Linkin Park album of the same name.
The series as a whole provides examples of:
- Ascended Extras: Under these altered circumstances, background characters often grow out of flat roles, attaining decent traits and depth. Many, such as Pink and Link and Tethys, become forces to be reckoned with. Then there's Ukyou and all of the bodies Chris adds to himself...
- Beyond the Impossible: The arena of the Third Circle, where people in moments of desperation can push themselves beyond all normal limits. Its presence can set people outside the rules and allow them to forge new ones at the expense of collapsing timelines and accruing Paradox.
- Colliding Ancient Conspiracies: A large part of the focus of Book II, although it also shows up heavily in Book III.
- Deconstruction Fic: Each Book has a different focus.
- Book I is a deconstruction of Self-Insert fics.
- Book II is a very straightforward Deconstruction Crossover.
- For Want Of A Nail: A lot of published plotlines are based on coincidences, so minor alterations to their timelines mean that a lot of people who might have been saved by small things, such as a hero being next to them in a park when things start to go wrong, simply fall through the cracks.
- We get to see how the Hellsing manga would develop if Alucard was taken out near the start of its story. It isn't pretty.
- Foreshadowing: Many of the crossovers are introduced subtly so it's often easy to miss that this character's existence or this event reported in the news means that giant cans of worms are set to explode, often into each other, a few chapters down the road.
- One of the last things Chris says before his death on his and Aaron's original Earth is how much he wants to name something 'Kalia-chan'.
- Functional Magic: There is a lot of time spent discussing how everything works through the First Circle (Natural reality and the art of causing excessively improbable things to happen through Chi), the Second Circle (Impossible things that have precedent, willed into being through Magic), the Third Circle (Concepts forcing themselves to be and always have been at the expense of gaining Paradox). Each Circle is very vulnerable to the one 'above' it.
- Aaron wrote a lot about how he believed chi worked across various manga and it appears that the new world he's arrived in follows his Five Chakra system exactly, even though the local expert, Doctor Tofu, has only discovered part of how it works and how it can be used to boost abilities.
- Wind Chakra – temple – intellect, speed and agility.
- Water Chakra – sternum - health and vitality.
- Earth Chakra - stomach - stamina and resistance.
- Fire Chakra – crotch – passion and strength.
- Void Chakra – the aura outside the body – perception.
- Aaron wrote a lot about how he believed chi worked across various manga and it appears that the new world he's arrived in follows his Five Chakra system exactly, even though the local expert, Doctor Tofu, has only discovered part of how it works and how it can be used to boost abilities.
- Ontological Mystery: There is a myth of Susano-o and Orochi. The fact that there are now at least three Orochis running around, each clearly the inspiration for the original myth which contained only one Orochi, means something has gone horribly wrong somewhere... Only Aaron has heard the voice of the one who set everything in motion, Chris being too dead at the time. There are many educated guesses, but no-one really has a clue as to what is going on.
- The lack of a cohesive universal backstory is bad enough on Earth where most of the societies appear 'normal' until their stories really get rolling. Washuu wakes up to find that the galaxy she's traveled end to end as a citizen of the peaceful Jurai Empire is now half-full of planets that have always been under the cruel thumb of warmongering Sailor Galaxia.
- Shout-Out: All the titles are drawn from Linkin Park.
- There are many references to stories that exist somewhere in the background of the combined universe and a few that Aaron and Chris research deliberately to rule out them being real as well.
- Split at Birth: Herbalists Pink and Link turn out to be grown-up versions of a child cursed into two people by Jyusenkyou spring water.
- Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: All of Book I either takes place in Tokyo or is about people who are (soon to be) headed there. Book II has a massive planetary tear occur directly above the city.
- Played with in Book III. For most of it, the city itself isn't mentioned, with all the action either taking place elsewhere or inside the enclosed space of the Pillars of Heaven, until the action in those towers spills out into the streets. That said, the Pillars have been built in Tokyo rather than the New York of their original timeline.
Chapters 1 through 10, Book I: High on Emotion, provide examples of:
- Beyond the Impossible: When Sailor Pluto freezes time in order to kill Ukyou, the ninja isn't affected - not through an act of will, but simply because Ukyou wasn't paying attention.
- It's a Small World, After All: The bus Ukyou and Ranma flee on in order to avoid a Sailor Moon episode is crewed by an energy-draining youma.
- Lured into a Trap: Jadeite spectacularly broadcasts the showdown to be held at Narita airport. After the place is full of police and reporters, Tethys activates a draining fog that knocks all but one out, amassing a huge amount of spiritual energy for Jadeite to tap.
- What the Hell, Hero?: After Ukyou/Aaron purposefully snap Hayato's spine, paralyzing him, they get called on it extensively.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Nabiki convinces Ryouga that he snapped and abused her because she wants him to be her perfect willing slave.
Chapters 11 through 20, Book II: Spark to A Flame, provide examples of:
- Driven to Suicide: One of the Jyusenkyou springs has a curse that makes anyone hit by it commit suicide. Chris uses this on Shampoo, who has just deleted Pink, to get around the vow of Technical Pacifism he made to Akane.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sailor V takes out anti-hero Alucard because she sees him as a mass of vile and roiling energy that is clearly enjoying how much it scares her. This dooms England and much of Western Europe...
- Love Epiphany: Aaron suddenly realizes that he loves Ranma independently of Ukyou.
- Love Revelation Epiphany: Nabiki dives into Ryouga's mind on a whim only to discover that, while he's grown to hate himself, he loves her.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When Chris discovers that Aaron is alive within Ukyou, Chris tracks them down and begins to tear up a neighborhood, completely oblivious to the fact that he is threatening many, many lives, even when there is a civilian woman bleeding in front of him.
Chapters 21 through 30, Book III: Into the Light, provide examples of:
- Consummate Liar: Averted. Angel has worked for years on the art of creating the perfect backstory. However, Akira simply isn't interested in hearing it.
- Defensive Feint Trap: Rip Van Winkle discards all of her bullets except for the one in the center mass of the phased out Lotus Infinite that will explode the assassin if she solidifies in order to take advantage of the vampire's apparent moment of weakness.
- I Never Got Any Letters: Zoalord Purgstall has been hiding all of Cologne's reports on Chris' activities from the rest of Chronos to keep her safe.
- Shout-Out: Ukyou makes one about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.Ukyou: Well, to use the words of a far wiser woman than I: 'We saved the world, I say we party.'
- Time Skip: Over the course of Chapter 21 the story advances seven years to 1999.
- Trickster Mentor: Shingo Tsukino, Sailor Moon's younger brother, is approached by a dark and mysterious figure who promises power and molds him over the years into a powerhouse and a ladies' man. Turns out it's Happousai.
The side story Remember the Name, provides examples of:
- Broken Pedestal: Ryu faithfully trains Sakura in the martial arts. She tracks him down after he becomes a vampire in hopes of returning him to the light but all she does is convince him he really needs her as a dark apprentice.
- Gambit Roulette: Athena sets the plot in motion because she's sure Pantyhouse Tarou and Sakura will make a cute couple and she needs the Dread Martial Artist Vampire Ryu continuously distracted and really, really angry so he can be defeated before innocent people are hurt.
The side story The Untitled, provides examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: It ends with a nice peaceful scene in the enchanted forest where Rei admits that Washuu can't do everything and Angel is truly grateful to Mihoshi for going out of her way to find and return Angel's sword.
- Dungeon Bypass: When Iron Mouse's 'Galactica Banish' opens up a portal to a place that the great Washuu can't hope to escape from, Washuu secretly links it to a new and much safer destination.
The side story Live From Techzas, provides examples of:
- Attractive Bent-Gender: The charismatic world-hopping boy band of Seiya, Taiki and Yaten are actually Sailor Senshi who have become male singers to better preserve their secret identities.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Touga's first plan to ingratiate himself with the forces of Jurai is to set the Sailor Stars against Princess Ayeka's team, then swoop in to save the day. It doesn't get very far...
- Reality Is Out to Lunch: Z's plan to hasten the end of the universe results in a broken future version of Akira overlapping with the one on the heavily distorted ship. She treats his conceptual hyperdimensional field of 'wings' as concrete reality, tearing them up and gagging him with a ball of them before pushing him into space.
The April Fool's version of Chapter 10, provides examples of:
- Madness Mantra: This is April Fool's Filler
- Also, the author's notes are... musical notes.
- No Fourth Wall: The nonsense piles up so quickly that the characters abandon the chapter completely.
- Poke the Poodle: Ukyou celebrates her final fall to the dark side by decapitating her spatula-headed friend and baking okonomiyaki. Evil okonomiyaki.
