Fanfic / Kamen Rider Kuuga: Rising unto the Stars

"My first Self-Insert Fic. A nerdy guy got transported to the Pretty Cure universe and became Kamen Rider Kuuga. However, Daguva also came to life and wish to wreak havoc upon this peaceful (sort of) universe. Feeling responsible, the SI me vows to take responsibility and stop Daguva."

—The author's synopsis

Once, there was an otaku who bordered on being a hikikomori. And one fine day, he was messing around with his Kamen Rider merchandise, when funky electrical shenanigans bumped him off to the Pretty Cure universe. Now, Rasyid Surataruna must become the legendary Masked Rider Kuuga in order to try and stop the Grongi from recycling their scheme in the Precure world. With occasional Harem Comedy hijinks.

Sounds pretty much like an archetypical Self-Insert fic, right? WRONG! Kamen Rider Kuuga: Rising Unto the Stars, by strangerthenever, takes a good old-fashioned Rider Kick to several crappy Self-Insert tropes, and tries to show us a glimpse that even a blatant Self-Insert fic can be legitimately cool.

One thing Rising Unto the Stars is especially noteworthy for, that you hardly ever see in the majority of self-insert fic, is how much and how clearly the author well and truly loves the material he's working with.

NO FEAR! Recurring Kamen Rider Kuuga tropes include:

• Cool Bike: Being that Rasyid gets to be Kuuga, it's almost a given that he also gets to use Godai's Trychaser.
  • Badass Biker: Rasyid, once he starts actually getting the hang of riding Trychaser. Also, probably Tachibana and Ryuuko.
• Henshin Hero: Rasyid Sarutana, normally just an Indonesian otaku and Ascended Fanboy. One "CHOU HENSHIN!" later, and he's a badassTranshuman Champion of Justice.
• Multi Form Balance: Growing Form and Mighty Form - as of chapter 11, Rasyid hasn't achieved any of Kuuga's other forms yet.
• Transformation Trinket: the Arcle. Meta-inherited, like all of Rasyid's other Kuuga-related gear, from Yuusuke Godai.

NO PAIN! Recurring Pretty Cure tropes include...

• Action Girl: beyond the legion of Precures and their allies stationed throughout Japan, the fic also has original character Asuka (an FBI agent), as well as a Captain Ersatz/Identical Stranger of Ryuuko Matoi being among Rasyid's combat instructors.
• Magical Girl Warrior: Not only does Rayshid live with Saki and Mai, but the rest of the Pretty Cures are mentioned to be active elsewhere.

CHOU HENSHIN! Rising Unto the Stars provides an example of...

• Accidental Innuendo: happens from time to time.
  I clasped both of his arms, also trying to keep his mouth shut so he won't shoot his load off…
• Anger Born of Worry: Asuka to Rasyid, on at least one occasion.
• Arch-Enemy: Daguva makes a point, right from the get-go, to set himself up as Kuuga's nemesis.
• Ascended Fanboy: Rasyid is a huge fan of both the Pretty Cure and Kamen Rider franchises. And then a Random Omnipotent Being sends him (and his crapload of Kamen Rider Kuuga merchandise, which is itself admitted Wish-Fulfillment on the part of the author) to the Pretty Cure universe, and he gets to be Kuuga.
• Author Appeal: in particular, the author absolutely loves the Super Imaginative Chogokin toyline designs for Kuuga and his forms, and would like to remind the readers that Rasyid's transformations in the fic are based on that.
• Batman Gambit: Rasyid initially holds off on transforming when he fights the Spider Grongi, knowing that Saki and Mai will themselves transform into Cures Bloom and Egret and help him out.
• Berserk Button: see the entry for Hot-Blooded.
• Big Brother Instinct: Rasyid to the Precures and their allies. So naturally, messing with them - or even just threatening to - is a sure way piss him off.
• Big Damn Heroes: episode five. Hostage Situation in a burning building. Cue the Max Heart and Splash Star Precure teams.
• Big "OMG!": Rasyid gives one from time to time. Kazuya also has a couple of them.
• Blood from the Mouth: apparently, this was Rasyid's condition after his prologue confrontation with Daguva in the wormhole.
• Blood Knight: pretty much the main reason why Daguva doesn't just kill Rasyid immediately - he wants the new Kuuga to power up and achieve Ultimate Form, so that Daguva can enjoy another balls-to-the-walls bloodbath of a final battle. And if Rasyid should give into anger and become the Ultimate Darkness...
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Daguva makes a claim to operating on Blue and Orange Logic when Rasyid calls him out on causing a mass prison break when it didn't (seem to) factor into [Daguva's] then-stated plan.
• Bold Inflation: from the second chapter onward, this is used to denote when Rasyid momentarily switches to English. Usually used for a Precision F-Strike.
• Buffy Speak: Rasyid engages in this sometimes, when he can't figure what the correct term for something is. Like not being familiar with the word "kickstand", for instance.
• Butt-Monkey: the main character himself. His potential Love Interests frequently tease and embarass him, and Rasyid is hilariously (or even frighteningly) prone to digging himself deeper. If you consider mildly flirtatious conversation as analogous to combat, then Rasyid is practically on the receiving end of a never-ending Curb-Stomp Battle. And the one time he actually starts to out-tease some of his love interests, the local Papa Wolf and Knight Templar Big Brother are right behind him.
• Calling Your Attacks: There's at least one case where Rasyid gives a full-on, Hot-Blooded Attack Call, compared to Yuusuke Godai's usual Kiai. Naturally, someone gives it a good Lampshade Hanging.
• Chewing the Scenery: Rasyid can indulge in this sometimes if he gets overly excited. He does have the self-awareness to immediately apologize for nerding out like that whenever he catches himself doing it, though.
  Rasyid: "Mai, this bike isn't 'nice', it's awesome! Especially since this is the same one ridden by Kamen Rider Kuuga, one of my all-time favorite tokusatsu heroes! This thing goes really fast! I was hanging on for dear life, but by God; I conquered the Trychaser 2000!"
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Rasyid, once he's become Kuuga. More or less comes with being The Hero.
• Cool Old Guy: Kojiro Taki, Asuka's grandfather. Doubly so for being a Reasonable Authority Figure.
• Cuteness Proximity: Rasyid occasionally lets this get the better of him when he's around a Precure.
  • Rasyid has it even worse when confronted with Moop and Foop. The kid's barely able to keep himself under control.
• Composite Character: a bizarre trait for a self-insert, but it happens nonetheless, as Rasyid finds that he subconsciously imitates some of Godai's mannerisms, most notably his tendency for giving people a thumbs-up.
• Covert Pervert: Rasyid tries his damnedest to be one (as well as being a Chivalrous Pervert), but given the way his mouth gets the better of him, he's more like an Open Closet Pervert to any woman who's talked with him for more than an hour.
• Deconstruction/Reconstruction: while the author claims it isn't intentional, RUTS often defies, or attempts to explain or justify several of the common tropes that give SI such a negative reputation.
  • God-Mode Sue: Averted Trope. Instead of the narrative working to build the protagonist into a God-Mode Sue with Story-Breaker Power from the word "go", Rasyid initially only has access to Growing Form, and isn't able to achieve Mighty Form until he resolves to protect the Precure world from the Grongi.
  • Jerk Sue: Averted Trope. Rasyid is absolutely a Nice Guy to the core.
  • Harem Genre: ...still present, but presented a bit more realistically than the stereotype would have you believe. Partly because the author's religious beliefs allow one man to have multiple wives as long as he is able to provide and care for them all. Partly because Rasyid's potentially romantic relationships actually take time to develop, with most of said relationships not really passing the Ship Tease stage as of chapter 11.
  • Self-Insert: Fun news is, Rasyid gets to be Kamen Rider Kuuga in the Pretty Cure universe. Bad news is, Kuuga's enemies are ALSO in the Pretty Cure universe, and are starting up a new killing game to boot!
• Defictionalization: In-Universe, and combined with a truly bizarre meta example of Legacy Character - Rasyid is a guy from our world, who gets sucked into the Pretty Cure world and becomes Kamen Rider Kuuga by virtue of spacey-wacey shenanigans with his merchandise. But Kamen Rider Kuuga (as well as the rest of the franchise, and presumably everything else the author makes reference to) is also a television show in the Pretty Cure world. So from both the perspective of both the real-world protagonist and the Precure characters' perspective, Rasyid is the second character/person to bear the powers and mantle of Kamen Rider Kuuga, with the first person having just been a TV show character. And, unusually for the typical crossover Self-Insert fic, The Hero isn't the only thing from the show to have appeared in the Precure world - the Grongi also exist in the Precure world, with a Genre Savvy Daguva to lead them!.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Rasyid often ends up verbalizing thoughts that he intends to keep to himself, usually when talking about relationships with one Love Interest or another, almost always to his embarassment. Ends up as the fic's main Running Gag.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Rasyid has this problem occasionally. Case in point, see the second example under Funny Moments.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Chapter 7 is a Dream Sequence regarding the 2011 Sendai Earthquake. Confirmed by the author that no matter how powerful Kuuga may become, the tragedy cannot be prevented.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: Inverted Trope, Rasyid constantly loses track of his conversations with other characters when he starts thinking about something in-depth or when he starts his back-and-forth with Riku.
• First-Person Smartass: the narration isn't always in first-person perspective, but when it is, it usually falls into this trope.
• Freak Out: Rasyid has a brief, but very angry one when Kazuya tells him that he's in 2011 instead of 2013.
• From Bad to Worse: Daguva isn't the only N-group Grongi.
• Genre Deconstruction: It's a Kuuga fic, done by an author that wants to stay true to the source material. Of course this is going to happen from time to time.
• Genre Savvy: The storyline largely borrows from the Kamen Rider Kuuga TV show, so The Hero and the Big Bad both know how things are most likely to play out - Rasyid because he's watched the show several times, and Daguva because he, of course, lived it.
• Gilligan Cut: "There's no way I'm [sneaking into the mall to investigate for a lead on the Grongi]!" One scene change later, and "I cannot believe I'm doing this!"
• Harem Seeker: Rasyid reveals himself to be a closet harem seeker on an occasion when he lets his mouth run a bit too long (a chronic problem of his). In front of several love interests, no less.
• Heroic BSoD: Rasyid has a brief one (although downplayed compared to most) before he can summon up the nerve to transform for the first time.
• Heroic Resolve: Rasyid talks about protecting everyone's smiles and stopping Daguva as early as the first chapter, but it isn't until chapter 4 that he truly develops the resolve to see it through, allowing him to achieve Mighty Form.
• Hot-Blooded: Rasyid angers much more readily than Godai did in the show . This is actually quite the plot point, given that Daguva tries to take advantage of his Berserk Button by targeting the Precures in the dream world, in the hopes that it will force/accelerate Rasyid developing into Black-Eyed Ultimate Kuuga.
• Infodump: occasionally, there will be a narrative infodump to explain the backstory of various Precure characters, for the benefit of readers that aren't familiar with the source material.
• Insistent Terminology: the Grongi keep referring to the Precures (or maybe Rasyid's love interests in general) as "virgins". Which is kind of accurate, yes, but still creepy as all hell.
• Instant Expert: On achieving Mighty Form, Rasyid suddenly instinctively knows how to perform complex martial arts moves he's seen from videogames. Even he is surprised.
• In the Name of the Moon:
  • It crops up from time to time, whenever one of the good guys (be it Rasyid or one of the Precures) transforms and is about to fight.
  • Rasyid also has a great one on finally achieving Mighty Form.
    Mighty Kuuga: "That's right! I am the Mighty Warrior! The one who shall vanquish evil with the fiery blazes of justice! I am Kamen Rider Kuuga!"
• Just Between You and Me: the Bat Grongi. Unusually for the trope, he's only expositing the plan because he's ordered to, rather than because he thinks the heroes won't be able to stop it.
• Lampshade Hanging: Happens on occasion. Sometimes other characters hang a lampshade on the hero, and there's at least one time when Rasyid comments on some of the author's... questionable design aesthetics.
• Mad Scientist: apparently, Daguva might be dabbling in biological science, using the freed violent criminals and turning them into the arachnoid monsters from Kamen Rider BLACK. Knowing Daguva, it might be to accelerate Kuuga's growth... or, hell, maybe even just For the Evulz.

• Mook Chivalry: How very generous of the Golgom-esque Spider monsters not to gang up on Rasyid...
• Never Mess with Granny: Kairi Tachibana, a meta stand-in for Tobei Tachibana from the Showa era.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: FBI Agent Asuka Taki, apparently. And when you consider how prone she is to using it...
• Oh, Crap!: the first of many, and quite possibly one of the best:
  Rasyid: "Wait... where's Daguva?"
  • Rasyid has another one not long after, in response to Daguva's Pretender Diss.
  • Really, Rasyid just has this reaction a lot, and let's leave it at that.
• Original Generation: a fair segment of the supporting cast is made up of original characters, though most of them are expies or ersatzes of characters from various other published works.
• Or Was It a Dream?: Rasyid's dreamscape battles with Daguva take place in a mental dream world, but apparently Rasyid's physical body still sustains the damage Daguva deals him.
• Otaku: The bulk of the first chapter is basically showing that, yes, the main character is a complete and total nerd, especially when it comes to Kamen Rider Kuuga. And then a timespace wormhole comes in right the hell out of nowhere during a storm.
• Outside-Context Problem: the Grongi are very much this to the Precure universe. Rasyid, being Masked Rider Kuuga, probably also qualifies.
• Pervert Revenge Mode: surprisingly averted.
• Pretender Diss: when Rasyid attempts to give a Badass Boast about stopping Daguva in the prologue, this is the response he gets. Also combined with Shut Up, Kirk!.
  Daguva: "Boy, did you forget that Kuuga is also a Grongi? Unlike that Godai person, you are easily more perceptible to violence. You will fall into chaos."
• Pop-Cultured Badass: the lead character is a pretty cool guy. Beats up Grongi and makes gratuitous references and doesn't afraid of anything.
• Private Eye Monologue: Word of God has it that Rasyid constantly losing himself in thought is a parody of this trope, as the internal narration happens in real-time.
• Reference Overdosed: rather than trying to actually count up all the shout-outs, suffice to say that there're just a whole damned bunch of 'em.
• Running Gag: Rasyid putting his foot in his mouth with regards to being a(n open?) Closet Pervert and/or Chivalrous Pervert. Usually in the presence of his love interests, and in one case in proximity of the relevant Papa Wolf and Knight Templar Big Brother.
• Shout-Out: several. Probably enough to warrant a subpage, but a few of the more notable ones include:
  • "Pain is power!"
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: There are enough Jojo references to merit its own subsection...
    • "The next thing you're going to say is...!"
    • "'''OOOOOOORRRAAAAHHH!'''"
    • Gratuitous English normally wouldn't in itself qualify as a probable Shout-Out, but given how many other JJBA references this author likes to drop: "Hooooly shiiiit!"
    • Rasyid Surataruna just wants to live a quiet life.
  • Whoops, better kick him off before they Piccolo'd me like Raditz and Goku.
  • Rasyid claims to have always theorized that fictional universes actually exist in their own parallel planes...
  • What gives, did I accidentally bumped into the TARDIS when I was in the wormhole?!
  • Riku: "And I think I have also heard you saying, 'What's an alternate universe or two?' and something about rejecting a reality and substituting your own…"
  • Assorted other fanfics sometimes get name-dropped on occasion, such Mass Vexations, Sleeping with the Girls, The Interference...
• Sophisticated as Hell: this exchange in response to chapter six's Requisite Awkward Moment:
  Riku: A single matchstick is all one needs to start a fire.
  Rasyid: What the hell's that supposed to mean?
  Rasyid: I'm basically saying that shit happens, Linto.
• Spirit Advisor: a consciousness within the Arcle, which Rasyid refers to as 'Riku', awakes after the first couple of chapters to advise him. Apparently, this is the original Kuuga from the television series, who fought and lived 2000 years prior to Yuusuke Godai.
• Squee: Asuka's reaction on Rasyid turning into a Masked Rider right in front of her. Rasyid himself can also react this way sometimes, when he finds something sufficiently cool (like the Trychaser) or when something triggers his Cuteness Proximity.
• Stations of the Canon: believe it or not, a perfectly Justified Trope! The storyline mostly uses the same plot points as the Kuuga TV series, because Daguva is intentionally engineering it this way in the hopes that Rasyid can achieve Ultimate Form, and then give him another fight of a lifetime.
• Statuesque Stunner: Asuka, maybe. She is compared very favorably to Sailor Jupiter...
• They Would Cut You Up: this is Rasyid's concern about what'd happen to him if the government found out about his secret identity.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Said word-for-word, when Rasyid sees the despair Daguva can drive people to for kicks.
• Took a Level in Badass: Once Rasyid realizes that he has to become his own hero instead of trying (and failing) to constantly emulate Yuusuke Godai, he finally achieves Mighty Form.
• Troll: Rasyid doesn't normally make a habit of trolling people, but if an opportunity readily presents itself, he often becomes unable to resist. Even when it could bite him in the ass.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: happens periodically when something good happens to Rasyid. Suddenly gets the Trychaser out of nowhere? He doesn't even know how to ride a motorbike, nor any other vehicle. Finally manages to out-flirt some of his cute lady friends? Their father and big brother are right behind him.