Xavier is asked to tour fanfiction authors around the mansion, to observe which clichés to avoid when writing about the X-Men. Not intended to offend anyone. Rated safely.
The Visiting Writers
Professor Charles Xavier straightened his tie as he addressed his employees: Logan, Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Ororo Munroe (more commonly know as 'Storm'), and Kurt Wagner. "As you know, I'll be taking a few of our fanfiction authors around the Institute today."
They nodded, having been told this before. Logan, however, had a question. He took his cigar out of his mouth.
"Chuck, I know you have your reasons an' all, but...what the hell are you doing that for?" Logan inserted the cigar back in.
Xavier sighed. "It's community service. They caught me in an underground gambling ring; I had to do something to avoid prison."
Jean Grey looked incredulous. "A gambling ring, Professor?"
"Yes," he told her, "how do you think I pay for this place? It's not easy...but I do have a great poker face. Wanna see?" In an instant, his face was completely emotionless. Everyone looked impressed.
At that moment, there was a knock at the front door. Xavier sighed quietly. "There they are," he announced, and wheeled over to allow the authors in. The X-Men followed him, and stood behind his wheelchair in as presentable a way as possible.
The door swung open, and behind it was the oddest assortment of teenagers any of the adults had ever seen. There were about ten of them, but only two were boys. All looked excited.
"Oh, my god!" shrieked a girl at the front with thick black glasses and messy pigtails. "I can't believe this is happening! This is so cool! This is so great, I'm gonna- I'm gonna-" She stopped talking, and pulled an inhaler from her pocket. The teenager beside her rolled her eyes. She herself was covered head to toe in purple, with a short, shaggy haircut.
"Here we go again," she muttered. "This happened three times on the way over here."
"Oh, leave Rachel alone, Jules," a stocky, slightly overweight girl behind them said.
Jules rolled her eyes again. "Whatever," she trailed off, suddenly looking bored. She stared at the X-Men, her gaze finally resting on Jean. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" she asked.
Jean nodded, but Xavier explained it for her. "I suppose this is the first thing you'll be learning about. So many people wrote about her coming back to life as an entity more powerful than any force on Earth and becoming one of us again – usually with a different hair color – that we got tired of it and let her stay for good. See, that's just how strong cliché's are. They can change entire universes...well, they actually only make for a contaminated website, but there you go."
The kids nodded in understanding. "Good," he said, "then let's get started. Come in."
They filed through, everyone talking breathlessly except for Rachel, who was still gulping for air. Logan patted her shoulder and she nearly fell over.
Once everyone was inside, Xavier pulled out a little notebook and a cell phone. "Excuse me for one moment," he said, and dialed someone's number. "Hello? Oh, hello, Rob. Yeah, it's me again...I know I called you last night. Well, sorry then. I said I was sorry. Fine...okay, put...let's say, oh, two thousand on lucky number seven. What are the odds? Wow, that's fantastic...All right, three thousand. Great. See you." He hung up, noticing the amazed glares all around him. "What?"
"Er, Professor..." Storm said. "Have you ever considered...getting help?"
Xavier looked genuinely surprised. "For what?"
She sighed. "Never mind," she told him.
"Great. Now, before we begin the tour, what kind of fanfiction do you all write?"
"OMG, JOTT!" a tall blond girl at the back screamed. Someone hit her.
"Shut up, Lisa, that is really getting on my nerves! I do songfics."
"Anything with original characters," Jules said, studying her nails.
"I write stories about S and M so dirty that they should probably be on the adult website," said one of the boys, who appeared to be in his late teens. He grinned wolfishly at Kurt, who sidestepped behind Storm quickly.
"If he starts bothering you," she whispered to him, "tap my shoulder and I'll try to help."
"Thank you," he said, though he still looked nervous. Xavier did, too.
"Um, I think that's enough," he stated. "Let's go down to the basement."
"What's down here?" Rachel asked as they all traveled down the elevator. She had finally put her inhaler away.
Xavier opened the doors and led them into a blindingly white hallway. "Well, oftentimes cliches come in the form of people, and since we have all this empty space down here, we decided we may as well just use it." He motioned towards a room on the right. "Now, since the different types all have the same characteristics and trademarks, we keep each kind in their own private quarters. Wait a second." As he wheeled himself over to the door, he stared straight ahead. A blue light suddenly came out of a hole in the entry, and scanned his eyes. Then it opened. "Here we are," he announced, entering. Everyone trailed after him.
"OMFG," said Lisa, who seemed incapable of communicating in any other way.
"This place is HUGE!" Rachel exclaimed, reaching for her inhaler. Xavier smiled.
"Actually, that's the only good cliche we've experienced...authors seem to assume that we have unlimited space, so, like the situation with Jean, we do."
"Sweet," said the boy that hadn't written the explicit stories. "So what's in here?"
"It's the least dangerous," Scott told him cheerfully. "All of the girls who were devastated when John Allardyce left to join the Brotherhood. They started coming up everywhere, and the howling got annoying, so we just chucked them down here."
"Why are you so happy?" Jules asked, using her phone to text someone.
Scott grinned. "Jean's back. No one's made me try to kill myself or start dating Rogue for weeks. It's very relax-"
He was interrupted a shriek. "Why, John, why?"
A tall, impossibly thin girl suddenly appeared out of nowwhere. She had keeled over in front of the group, sobbing. "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me, including losing my entire family at once to Magneto, my one true love's leader!" she wailed. Then she looked up. "How's that for ironic? By the way, my name's Ruby. You can call me Roo, though. That's the special nickname John made up for me. God, we had such a deep connection-"
"No one cares," Scott told her happily. "Now go back to the other girls."
She burst into a fresh bout of tears, but complied. Her cries of "John! John!" were soon joined by a large chorus. Xavier paled.
"Oh, dear, they're starting up again," he said. "Let's get out of here."
In the next room, the adults seemed to be on guard. On the other hand, the children were quiet in amazement at what they had just seen. Finally, the overweight girl asked: "So what's in here?"
"Shh," Logan said, "they have great hearing. Talk quietly."
"Okay," she murmured. "What is it?"
"My wives," he muttered, lighting a new cigar. "Apparently I've gotten married several times before I lost my memory and joined the X-Men. Oh, damn it, they heard me."
Three women came up to them, right as Logan began hiding behind Storm along with Kurt.
"James!" one cried. "You haven't visited for so long!" She was smiling.
The second one, a short, slight raven haired nymphette, looked happy too. "I thought you'd forgotten about me, ahaha..."
Logan stared at his feet. "I told you to quit making that joke," he said, and then inhaled deeply on his cigar. "Sonuvabitch...Chuck, can we leave before they begin talking about having kids? I hate that."
"What do you mean, he forgot about YOU?" the third one asked. "He's MY husband! We've talked about this!"
"He's not yours, he's mine!"
"Skank!"
"Oh, I'm the skank? I saw you looking at Scott!"
Xavier didn't appear disturbed. Instead, he was flipping through his notebook. "They're fighting again. Let's go." He took out a pencil as he moved through the door. "Anyone seen today's lottery numbers?"
"NO!" everyone shouted over the noise of the squabbling.
In the next room, no one needed to explain the problem. As they walked in, the first thing they saw was a sixteen-foot long pair of wings stretched out to their fullest extent. They were joined by a blond young man, who happened to be shirtless. Sitting before him were easily a hundred girls, all staring up at him in awe.
Xavier looked shocked now. "Warren! What are you doing?" he inquired.
Warren spotted them and immediately folded his wings. "Hey there," he said to the group. "D'you mind? Kinda in the middle of something..."
The girls laughed. Xavier was not impressed. "I told you to stop coming down here," he said. "Don't encourage them!"
Warren snorted. "Why not? A bunch of hot girls, all of whom adore me...I could spend the rest of my life in this place."
"This is the Angel fan-girl area," Xavier told the authors, though they didn't need this explained. "We get a new one about twice a week. It's really getting annoying. Writers don't seem to realize that these aren't really very original, just – forgive the term – a bunch of Mary-Sues."
"I don't think it's annoying!" Warren told him, expanding his wings again to much applause and gasps. He looked quite pleased with himself.
As they were leaving, Xavier's phone rang. Without a word, he dug it out of his pocket and answered it. "Hello? Oh, hi, Rob...really? It did? Oh my god...yes. That's the best news I've heard in a while! Thank you! Yes, I'll call you tomorrow...all right, you can, but nothing higher than fifteen thousand per...Great. Thanks again. Bye." He hung up and smiled at everyone. "Wonderful news! I just won sixty-three thou! We can upgrade to PCs!"
They all gave him a fake grin and shifted from foot to foot, wondering whether they should be happy or not, except for Scott. He pumped his fist into the air, wound his arm around Jean's waist, and kissed her cheek.
"That can't be good," Storm muttered through her teeth as they trailed towards the next room. Then she remembered what was in it. "Oh, mother-"
"YOU CAME!" someone squealed, and that noise was trailed by what sounded like fifty or more footsteps. Kurt immediately was struck by realization.
"I think I'm going to go outside," he said quickly, then teleported away with a bamf.
Only one moment later, an uncountable amount of girls stampeded over to them. "Where'd he go?" the lead one asked, looking puzzled. She suddenly snapped her fingers. "Oh, right. He does that...moving thingy. What do you guys want?"
Storm pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. "Oh, god, I hate this place." She faced the group. "This is where we keep the aggravating know-it-all women who insist on showing up all the time. They come in, suddenly 'bond' with Kurt over their knowledge of the Germanic language and religious body art, then are kidnapped by Magneto, thereby forcing him to go and save them. It's very expensive and time-consuming. Also, the girls never shut up about their past lives...which nine times out of ten contain dead parents. Oh, and poverished conditions. And unwanted suitors. Actually, the list goes on for quite a bit." She groaned.
"My daddy!" one shouted, pushing her way through the crowd and then throwing herself at the feet of the X-Men. She started writhing dramatically with sobs, but the entire time she kept on eye on them to make sure they were paying attention. "And my poor lifestyle has scarred me for life! And I'm so beautiful that everyone keeps stalking me, even though Kirk is my one true love!"
Xavier sighed. "His name's Kurt." Turning to the children: "They don't even bother paying attention anymore, the storyline's so generic. Let's keep moving."
"Wait!" said the girl on the floor. "Can we see Dirk first?"
"It's Kurt, bimbo," Logan told her, before walking out with the others.
Out in the hallway, Kurt was sitting on the floor. He stood up when he saw them. "Did they keep calling me Kirk?"
"Yep."
"I thought so." He marched ahead, but noticed the S and M boy leering at him again and fell back behind Storm. "This is getting a bit scary," he said under his breath.
"Come on, everyone," Xavier called out, wheeling to the front of the group. "The next place we're visiting is very exclusive, so I'm afraid we won't be going into the room. I'll just tell you about it."
He stopped in front of the largest door in the basement, and held up his hand for silence. "Listen closely," he informed them, "and you can hear them."
After a few seconds of quiet, the sounds of splashing water and muffled shouts of joy reached their ears.
"What's in there?" the non-S and M boy asked.
"The 'most powerful mutant anyone has ever seen' holding area," Jean told him. "Every other day, a mutant shows up, having gone through some incredibly traumatic experience – sometimes they have amnesia – and we have a struggle with Magneto over them. But when we explained to them that we found them extremely frustrating and wanted them down here, they took it kind of personally. So they all grabbed the biggest room and set up a community free of anyone less powerful than them. They're kind of like the Amish...they have their own little world. It's weird knowing that it's right under our feet, but then again...we don't have to put up with them, so we don't care." She shrugged and grinned.
"Oh," the boy said. Then, when no one had anything further to say, he had another question. "Sooo...now what are we seeing?"
Xavier counted on his fingers. "I think that's it. There's some of these room's in Magneto's lair, but we're not going there. Wanna talk about plot clichés instead of people?" he asked eagerly. Before anyone could reply, he started talking. "Romances are fine, if they're done well. But if the storyline's too unoriginal, it...really sucks, I guess is the word. Let's see...I can't tell you how many times Logan and Storm have began dating in 'times of grief.' She and Scott have hooked up a couple times; she and Kurt keep getting into love-hate relationships about religion (usually ending in near suicide); Jean and Logan won't stop hitting on each other during Danger Room Sessions; and even he and Kurt get it on every once in a while-"
"I'm startin' to get tired of you telling that to strangers," Logan yelled at him.
"-and don't even get me started on the students," Xavier continued. "God, they're like gerbils."
"Ew," Rachel said, making a face. "Wait, do they keep having kids?"
"No, I was just saying that they have new boyfriends and girlfriends everyday."
"Oh, I get it. So what else?"
"Well, there's a lot of other things to discuss, but first let's-"
His phone rang.
"Excuse me." Xavier picked it up. "Oh, hey there, Rob...oh, my god. Oh, god...Well, I know that...Well, sorry then...Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm not God, I can't see into the future...CRAP! I'll see you tomorrow, then. Fine. Yeah. Bye." He snapped the phone shut angrily. "Bad news, everyone. We're not getting the computers, my bookie lost it all at the track. Oh, and we're four thousand dollars in debt."
Everyone gasped; Rachel sucked noisily at her inhaler. Jules was fixing her hair in the reflection of a pocket mirror, totally unaffected. Xavier was positively glowering.
"That ends the tour, everyone," he said.
Jules looked at her watch. "We still have another hour and a half to go," she told him in a bored tone. He rolled his eyes exasperatedly.
"Then I'll give you another cliché and go play poker online for the next five hours. Erm..." he sat in thought for a second. "Oh, I got it! This'll take a while. Kurt, want to accidentally sleep with Storm and then cut yourself till you're near the brink of death?"
"No!" Kurt cried, shocked, just as the S and M boy shouted, "Yes!"
Kurt jumped behind Storm again and started hitting her shoulder. "Help," he told her. She pushed him away.
"Quit it!" she said.
"He keeps doing that," he insisted.
"Stop doing that," Storm told the boy. "Kurt – get off me!"
"I'm going to go gamble my problems away," Xavier announced, wheeling back to the elevators.
"I'm going to go drink all the beer in this place and hope I get slightly drunk," Logan told them all, chomping down hard on his cigar and following the professor.
"We're going to go watch movies together," Jean said, grabbing Scott's hand and pulling him in the direction of the elevator. He smiled widely and yelled, "No more depression. I'm back, baby!"
"I'm going to go get a shrink for Kurt, so he can discuss whatever traumatic childhood event it was that makes him feel the need to hit me whenever he's threatened," Storm sighed, pulling Kurt after Jean and Scott by the collar. "Come on..."
They left the teenagers in the hall, alone and puzzled. Finally Lisa spoke.
"So what do we do now?" she asked everyone, the first full sentence she had spoken all day.
Jules shrugged. "I'm going to go check out the Warren room again."
"Why?"
"He's topless...duh." She glared at them all, daring anyone to challenge her, then turned on her heel and walked away.
"Anyone wanna go see what kinds of TVs they have here?" the non-S and M boy asked the remaining kids.
"Sure," the overweight girl replied. "Want to get a burger or something later?"
"Sounds great." They grinned at each other.
"Hey, wait!" Lisa exclaimed. "So do we have to do that Evanescence medley now?"
"What Evanescence medley?" The S and M boy looked puzzled.
"We put it together on the bus ride over. Since a bunch of X-Men authors seem to be obsessed with that band, we thought it would fit in nicely. But you were asleep, and well...dude, you're kind of scary and we didn't want to wake you up."
He nodded. "Oh, okay. I understand. I guess I'll go hide in Kurt's closet, then."
A/N: All right...here are the apologies: if you're writing a story containing any of these storylines, it doesn't mean it automatically sucks. It's just that I've read a lot of botched plots like these. If you make it interesting and you write well, then good job!
And for the Evanescence thing: I'm a fan too. I have every song on the new CD memorized. One of my favorite songs is 'Lachrymosa.' It's cool, the band's cool...we're all cool, I guess.