Monsters
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis, True Blood or The Southern Vampire Mysteries….yet.
Micki was distracted from her online conversation by her beagle, McKay, growling and barking non-stop in the backyard. What, another evil squirrel stealing the blue kibbles from his food bowl? She'd had to chain him to his doghouse lately. He'd been digging under the fence to chase the thieving squirrels to their lairs and annoyed the neighbors when he detoured on the way back home to leave his stinky calling cards.
[You chase me around with your red beta reader pen] the aspiring author continued via Yahoo Messenger. [This is bullying. You don't appreciate my writing genius.]
Micki had attempted to be encouraging yet honest with the young woman. Or maybe ToddsSlutt was a young man? One never knew with Internet personalities. A small but obsessive fandom that consisted of both genders crushed on the unusual Stargate Atlantis character of Todd the Wraith.
[I just have to put my foot down!] ToddsSlutt said. [I am not correcting my story any further. It's good enough as it is.]
[Do you want to be just good enough?] Micki typed. [Does this hook people into reading the next chapter? 'Todd the Wraith's consciousness fell into the dark and he knew no more.' Why don't you describe his last conscious moments? Would you watch a movie like that?]
[There was a Lord of the Rings movie like that. I believe they pocketed millions on it, enough to make yet another movie in that franchise despite the fade-to-black ending.]
[You don't have the benefit of multi-million dollar special effects to negate such mistakes in your writing.] Mickie typed, impatient with the author's ego.
[I gotta go. Later, Muckie.]
ToddsSlutt is offline.
Was "Muckie" a typo or a deliberate insult?
Micki's nose tickled, and she jerked a tissue out of the box beside her just in time to catch a sneeze. She tucked it away in her pajama pocket. It was the weekend, and she planned to stay in her flannel pajamas and fuzzy bunny slippers until she had to go back to work.
Barks, growls, and whines came from the back yard. McKay really hated his new chain. She'd bring him inside for the night soon.
"McKay! Shut up, will yah?" If this kept up, the neighbors were going to phone and call her bad names again. What had him so disturbed? Mickie glanced outside and saw a bizarre green glow above the trees at the edge of her property. She jumped out of her chair and rushed to the open window. A wind blasted through the previously motionless trees, whipping them about as if they were made of rubber, breaking branches and shredding leaves.
McKay scrabbled frantically at the grass, yelped, and flew up into the air. He hit the short end of his chain like a kite on a string, each leg pointed in four different directions. Leaves and twigs blasted through her open window into her office, ripped through Mickie's hair, and hit the walls with a patter of crunches. She grabbed the sill to pull the window down, even though the flying debris might break the glass. And froze.
A triangular green object about size of a small jet airplane hovered in her yard. The light blazed through McKay's flying doggie body, illuminating his skeleton in neon green like a nuclear x-ray. Micki squinted through her burning retinas to watch the UFO slide out three insect-like mechanical legs. The moment the landing gear touched the ground, the wind ceased. McKay ceased being a canine kite, landed on his feet and stumbled into his doghouse.
Let the neighbors come over and complain now. Wait, shouldn't I run or something? She stared down at her feet in their fuzzy slippers. Move, damn you. Run! She reached down and jerked on first one leg, then the other. It was as though they were glued to the floor.
A loud click snapped through the air. She jerked her head up to see a ramp run down out of the UFO. A green-skinned humanoid creature plodded down the walkway: hairless, short and naked except for a little skirt and black boots.
Behind the alien's back, McKay snuck out of his doghouse to creep over to the spaceship. His posture was all too familiar. All of her visitors complained about how McKay peed on their car tires.
Oh my god, McKay, this is one vehicle you don't want to pee on!
The beagle sniffed at a tripod, lifted his leg, and let go a whiz—and howled as a green flash lit him up like a search light. He collapsed to the ground.
"No! McKay! Don't be dead!" Micki struggled to pull her feet from the floor. If she could make her legs work, she could run out the back door, evade the alien and rescue the idiotic hound. If he was still alive, she could get him to the vet and save his life. But McKay kicked feebly, got up on his short wobbly legs, and made a drunken path back into the safety of his doghouse.
Maybe a vet will not be necessary after all.
The female thing had marched through the yard by now, and she heard clumping noises in the house as it went through her kitchen. Its tiny booted feet stomped through her office door. It halted and blinked its huge black eyes at her.
Micki screwed her eyes shut, threw her head back and screamed for all she was worth, screamed until she had to draw another breath, and then screamed some more. Panting, she listened and heard nothing other than her own breathing. She peeked through her lashes to see if she'd scared the alien off.
"I believe you beta read SGA stories? Particularly concerning Todd the Wraith?" The alien's mouth was a tiny orifice that resembled the sucker mouth of a carp, out of which emanated an ultra-feminine voice.
"W-why didn't y-you contact me through my beta profile on Fanfiction dot net?" Micki gasped, brushing her wind-blown hair from her face, and her fingers snagged on twigs and leaves. "Ouch!"
"I wish to suck out your brain cells," the alien said, trying to smile but looking more vicious than friendly. "That way, I may write my amazing original fan fiction story without having to learn how to correct my own mistakes or learn fiction writing convention."
"Errr…I don't believe I want to lose any more of my brain cells than I already carelessly killed in my college days."
Micki found she could move her feet after all. She shuffled away from the fanatic Stargate Atlantis fan-fiction writer. Even a couch potato like me could probably outrun those short alien legs.
"Don't be so selfish," the alien said, blocking her exit from the tiny room before Micki could make a break for it. "You have millions of brain cells…what's a few hundred thousand to you? You won't miss them. My amazing story must be told to the galaxy!" The carp-mouth turned upside down. "But when I contacted you earlier through Yahoo, you refused to re-write my story for me, despite its incredible originality."
"If I write it for you, it's no longer your story, it's mine." Micki rolled her eyes. "You crossed a freaking galaxy and you still don't get that? Only you can write your story! Besides, it's so Mary Sue-ish. Your heroine is a black haired, green-eyed genius with elf ears, kidnapped by Todd to become his love slave." Micki put her hands on her hips and glared at the diminuative being. "I know who you are. You must be Toddswife. I sent you that Mary Sue checklist…couldn't you see your lead character fits the description of a Mary Sue to a 'T'?"
"I didn't bother to read it." The alien crossed her knobby arms over her bumpy little chest. Now that she was closer, Mickie wondered if those were, indeed, boobs on her chest or two extra-large warts. The alien had no nipples on those bumps.
Mickie went to her computer chair and sat so she was not staring down at the alien. Somehow, it seemed politically incorrect to tower over the warty little alien woman. Alien thing. Whatever.
"It's also boring with that long techie chapter." Mickie remembered to add the info from her last critique of Toddswife's story.
"But I have the technical know-how of genuine interstellar travel! My story is entirely different from everyone else's!"
"Yes, ten pages of how a warp drive works is unique but not something people want to read unless they are physicists," Mickie said. Speech came easier to her as she warmed to her subject. She pointed a finger in the middle of the alien's chest. "The sex scene on top of the reactor core and the results of the warp drive vibrations on the main character's orgasm was kind of interesting- but the sex needed to be a lot hotter. 'Todd put his member into her wet center while nipping her ear.' That's not sexy, dear."
"I rather like ear nipping," Toddswife said, squaring her narrow shoulders.
"I mean…call it a cock and a pussy for cryin' outloud, or at least give us some hot details. Everyone wants to know what Todd's 'member' looks like! Half the reason people read these Todd-centric fanfic stories is for the titillating descriptions of what's in the Wraith Commander's pants!"
"I don't write smut." The skin wrinkled deeply around Toddswife's glinting black eyes. "We have wasted enough of my time here. I need your brain cells so I can write my awesome story. You will give them to me. Now."
"Not a freakin' chance. I have my own awesome stories to write." Micki leaped to her feet and raced for the door, only to find her feet glued to the floor from one step to the next. She fell over, smacking her forehead. She lifted her aching head to see the alien creeping up, her sucker fish mouth twisted into a smirk.
Micki woke up hours later with a raging headache, apparently having fallen asleep on the floor. How strange, she must have slept a long while because it was already dark outside. She got up, wincing at her numerous aches and pains, the biggest one on her forehead, and plopped into her chair. Outside, she heard McKay whining. She ignored it. She'd just fed him, hadn't she? Before she had her little nap on the floor? The odd sound of a metallic snap came from the back yard, and she almost got up to investigate, but as she looked at monitor, she saw she had another beta reading request in her Gmail from EricVampLover.
[Do you beta read Southern Vampire Mysteries stories?] the subject line asked. She opened the email to read: [I need a beta reader for my SVM/True Blood story. I have a 500,000 word count and 100 chapters so far.]
Micki wasn't sure about going through 500,000 words, but she could always give it a try. She wrote back an affirmative, asked pertinent questions related to the SVM/True Blood fandoms, and clicked send.
A strange woman whooshed into the room, hair and clothing blowing back in the wind of her speedy movement, scattering a mess of papers from the desk to the floor. Micki shrieked as shadows spun and swirled like silk scarves from the dark corners of the office. The shades swooped about her pajama-clad legs and arms and wrapped their silken lengths around her arms and legs, binding her to the chair. As the shadows tightened, they sent fuzzy tingles over her body. Her galloping heart slowed to a trot.
The delectable scent of Shalini perfume floated into Micki's nose. That costs $900 for a two-ounce bottle. This woman has great taste.
Sharp fangs pressed on her pouty bottom lip as the stranger's lips curved into a smile. Mickie gasped and glanced down from that scary-beautiful face, to notice how the woman's dress plunged below her navel. How could she wear a boobalicious black silk dress slit to her pelvic bone, and still exude style and elegance? On anyone else, it would have reeked of sluttitude.
"Look at me, mortal." Micki's gaze cranked upwards despite the resistance of her neck muscles, until she stared into a pair of blue eyes as deep and dark as the depths of the ocean.
"What do you wish?" Micki drew in a deep breath of Shalini-delicious air, fascinated by the sparkle in the pupil-less irises. Her tense arms and legs relaxed and she sagged in her chair.
"I'm EricVampLover. I just emailed. You said you'd be interested in beta reading my story. I have this awesome, original SVM fanfic I'm writing, about a green-eyed, black haired, elf-eared heroine. The vampire Eric Northman kidnaps her and makes her his love slave".
Micki made note of her charming Eastern European accent.
"I'm having issues with all the little points, like the goals and motivations of the characters." EricVampLover said. "I'm offering you the honor of re-writing it for me. It's an amazing idea!"
Micki sighed, and replied to the fragrant, lovely dream standing before her, "That's a little Mary Sue-ish. Did you read my beta profile?"
The vampire's chin dipped up and down by a tiny degree.
"Did you click the link on my profile page and read the 'Mary Sue checklist'?"
The vampire turned her head right and left in elegant negation without breaking eye contact.
"Being kidnapped and enslaved for sex by a cannon character is pretty typical of Sue-thors," Mickie told the vampire, who shifted on her unbelievably high heels to stand hip-shot. Are those Prada? "I did like how you stuck to the cannon characteristics of Eric and didn't make him a 'human Eric' like so many other True Blood and SVM fan writers are doing."
The sparks in the vampiress's eyes glowed red. "I don't know this 'Mary Sue'," EricVampLover replied with a sniff and folded her arms across her voluptuous breasts, looking like an evil, brunette Dolly Parton. "And being a vampire is far superior to being human. Why would I write a story with Eric as a mere human instead of a magnificent vampire? What's the point?"
The shadows released Micki, and dissolved from her arms and wrists. She rubbed at her face. "Okay…I agree with most of that. Here, let's see your story and I'll give you my opinion."
The vampire handed her a bright pink thumb drive with a little white skull and crossbones on it.
"Oh, that's cute, where'd you get it?"
"Amazon dot com. Skallywag series."
"I should get one."
"Perhaps, if you serve me well, I'll send you one as a gift."
Micki bit her lip at the "serve me well" statement. Fear sizzled along her backbone as she jabbed the thumb drive into the computer port and located the file. She proceeded to read while the vampiress bent over her shoulder to read along with her. Her cold breath stirred Mickie's hair and poured glacial chill over her ear. She shivered. Goosebumps flocked and honked all over her body. The skin on her neck crawled at the close proximity of those sharp white fangs, even if the vamp was no longer showing them off. She focused her attention to the story on her screen.
"Hum." Micki raised her eyebrows as she read the vampire's first chapter. "Hey, this ain't half bad…pretty good in fact. You might be able to carry this off, despite the Mary Sue-ish-ness of your lead character."
"I told you, I don't know this Mary Sue." The un-dead woman curled her blood-red lips back to reveal her pointy canines. Micki gulped, and jerked her gaze back down to the computer screen.
"A 'Mary Sue' is a wish fulfillment character created by a fan fiction author to interact with the cannon characters of her preferred fandom. So many of these fantasy-fulfillment characters were named Mary Sue, that the fan fiction world started calling them that. For example…take the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, on which the television series "True Blood" is based. A reader fantasizes about having sex with the character Eric Northman-" The statuesque vamp licked her lips with a long and pointed tongue at the name. Micki hurried on with her explanation. "-so they start writing to fulfill their desires, and invent a character who is supposedly flawless in body and mind. Eric finds the "Mary Sue" irresistible, even though his attraction to the character has no logical reason to exist. A writer who does this is often called a 'Sue-thor'."
Micki drew in a deep breath. Shalini coated her lungs and she coughed. What had smelled wonderful a few minutes ago now clogged her nose with its intensity. She pulled the tissue out of her pajama pocket and wiped at her nose as she continued. "Elf-eared heroines with green eyes are as common as fleas on a hound dog in fan fiction."
EricVampLover grunted and the sparks in her eyes grew bigger, spinning in the depths. Micki shuddered and hunched her shoulders.
"Errr…but you appear to be carrying it off well. Despite the over-used physical description, your original character does have a few flaws, instead of being absolutely perfect. Your sex scenes are very lemony indeed—well done. Good sex scenes are hard to write."
"I have centuries of experience to draw from," the vampire said, the red glow fading from her eyes and her pouty lips curved into a friendly, closed-lipped smile. "However, I do have a problem with my writing I wanted you to help me with."
"What is that?" Micki asked, puzzled. "Your punctuation and spelling are flawless, despite your accent, which indicates English is your second language." Which went to prove that anyone could learn to write good grammar, if they cared to study hard enough-or maybe just long enough.
"I don't know what the problem is…why would I ask you if I knew? I wouldn't need you, puny human, I'd just solve it myself." She growled, and Mickie's heart tried to flee from the threat, ping-ponging inside her chest.
EricVampLover whirled away to pace back and forth in the small room, moving so quickly she was a blur of black clothing and white skin. Her impossibly high stiletto heels stabbed holes in the cheap carpet until the fabric ripped down to the plywood underlayment beneath, which she proceeded to poke into splinters with her Pradas.
"I don't get as many reviews as my amazing stories deserve." The vampiress huffed. "I only have three hundred reviews for my best one! I see other Southern Vampire Mysteries and True Blood stories-that are not nearly as awesome as mine-get a thousand or more reviews! How can that possibly be? I am so much more awesomer than they!" Micki squeezed her lips together. "Awesomer" was not a real word, but pointing it out it would not help to get her out of this situation alive. Sometimes a beta reader had to know when to pick her fights.
"And those stories with a thousand reviews get invited to join the Sookieverse community! I want to join communities of renown! I am so frustrated!" The vamp punched a gaping hole in the wall of Mickie's writing sanctuary. She took a breath to protest, and stopped it in her lungs it as the vamp spun to face her, drilling a hole into the floor. EricVampLover pulled her heel out of the wood with a sharp pop, and glared as if Mickie was personally responsible for her unhappiness. Her eyes were no longer blue at all, but solid, glowing red. Micki gasped in fear, clutched the arms of her office chair, and dug her short nails into the fabric.
Sweat popped out of Micki's pores as she scrambled through her brain for a way to deflect EricVampLover's ire. It was hard to think, almost as if she somehow had fewer brain cells. Maybe she should have partied less in college.
Focus Mickie! Focus!
She pulled the pertinent information up from her lagging memory banks."Well…uh…that I can answer. And. Uh. It's not your writing."
"Yesssssss?" EricVampLover's frigid hands clamped onto Mickie's shoulders, the long nails cutting through her pajama top. The vamp thrust her pallid visage into Micki's face so she recoiled as far as the vamp's grip and the back of her chair would allow.
"Yeah." The vampire relaxed a little, her hands still clutching Mickie's shoulders, but not all up in her face now as Micki explained the secret shame of Fanfiction dot net. "Some of those stories that collect a thousand reviews get them by deception."
"Deception?" The vamp's smooth white forehead wrinkled. She removed her hands from Micki's shoulders, and stood tall. "How can that be?"
Micki wiped at her brow with the back of a trembling hand. "Well, there are groups of authors in certain clicks on Fanfiction dot net who create ten fake email accounts. Then they use those email accounts to create ten false member accounts on the website. You can often tell which accounts are the fake ones, because they only have their buddies-their partners in fake reviews crime—favorited. No other authors outside their little clique. They and some of their friends who also write fanfic make the rounds giving each others' stories glowing, unrealistic reviews. Let's say there are five in the clique…and the five each have ten fake accounts." Micki sat up straighter with indignation, warming to the injustice of the subject. "They review ten chapters of a story for their clique-buddy with their ten fake accounts. Well, there you go…500 reviews, all false. Well, what happens if the clique reviews twenty chapters of a buddy's story?" The beta reader watched the vamp's face expectantly for the light bulb to go on in her head.
"A thousand reviews!" EricVampLover gasped, and then screeched in outrage. The supernatural sound rammed through Mickie's ears and impaled her brain.
"That's unfair! How dare they do such a thing! I should suck them all dry!"
"Well, good luck on that." Micki spent a moment savoring the idea of fanfiction cheaters drained of life before she let it go. "You won't get any argument from me, however…I don't believe they will be easy to locate. I think that several people- who know each other over the Internet- suddenly showing up dead or disappearing are going to draw some national attention."
"It's unfair! How can I compete?" EricVampLover started to pick up Micki's desk and toss it, but stopped when the beta reader waved her hands frantically. She lowered it with a heavy thump. The floor quivered.
"I don't have enough friends who are dishonest enough to make up fake accounts and review my wonderful stories!" the vampire whined.
Micki leaned back in shock, and frowned in moral disapproval as the vampire continued with her tirade.
"I know! I can beat the silly Sookieverse clique at their own game! I'll mesmerize humans on the street to rush to their computers, read my stories, and give me the praise I deserve…"
"Come on, you are a good writer! You can do better than that, don't fall to their pathetic level…" Micki stopped as the vamp's glowing gaze caught her in its cold grip.
"I'll start with you." EricVampLover lips curled with evil-author-intent. Micki's eyes glazed over as the undead writer clasped her face between her white fingers. Her blue eyes flashed solid red.
"What an incredible story!" Micki enthused over yet another of EricVampLover's amazing chapters, fingers flying over her keyboard. She'd already read the entire story several times, but it was so well written, she kept starting over and piling her rave reviews on every chapter.
"I can't believe I didn't find your stories sooner! Please, please write another chapter as soon as possible." A corner of Micki's brain felt something was not right here, but she stomped the feeling beneath the wonder of reading such a masterpiece as EricVampLover's SVM/True Blood fan fiction.
Oh my God. What shall I do as I wait for this wonderful author to post her latest chapter? The world seemed dull and gray at the idea of waiting until next week for EricVampLover to post a new chapter at her regular time. Micki's eyes filled with tears. She wiped at the drool dripping from the corner of her mouth with her pajama sleeve, and noticed the flannel looked stiff and dirty. She smelled something bad, too, and sniffed at her armpit. Gag, I smell pretty rank. How long has it been since I've had a bath? Or ate something?
The doorbell rang. She forced herself to get up and answer the door. McKay stood there, wagging his green tail and holding the mailman horizontally in his doggie mouth six inches from the ground like a rolled up newspaper.
When did McKay turn shiny green?
"H-Here's your mail!" the mailman yelled, throwing the envelopes and a tiny parcel at Mickie.
McKay released the man, who flopped on the porch, gasping like a fish before he sprang up to run away, screaming. "Vicious green dog! Call the cops!"
McKay trotted after him a short ways, but lost interest. He stopped to urinate on the blue and white postal vehicle's tires. The rubber bubbled. Bang—bang—bang-bang! The UPS jeep slammed to the ground on its rims.
"Bad dog!" Mickie yelled. "Get back in your yard right now or no Milkbones for you!"
McKay cowed a bit, giving her sad puppy eyes. She pointed emphatically at the backyard. The beagle jumped into the air and levitated over the six-foot privacy fence to make a soft four-paw landing on the other side .
Mickie frowned. That was a neat trick, and she didn't remember teaching him that.
A squirrel raced from McKay's dog bowl, clutching a kibble in its mouth, and clambered up the nearest oak. The green beagle barked and chased it straight up the tree trunk. Branches heaved, leaves swished and fell like rain. McKay dropped upside down from the tree, flipped in the air like a cat and landed on all four feet. There was a furry rag in his mouth and he continued crunching on it as his lips turned up at the corners in a happy doggie smile.
That was pretty cool. No more squirrels meant no more whining and barking while she read EricVampLover's stories. Micki went back into the house, intent on re-reading the awesome 500,000 word SVM fanfiction. She dropped her mail on the front step. Curious, she brushed aside the shut-off warnings and the notice of her late mortgage payment to pick up a small package. No return address on the outside. She ripped the cardboard open. Inside was a neon pink thumb drive with a cute skull and crossbones on it. Who sent that? A tiny note fell out of the box. She scooped it off the ground. The scent of Shalini clung to the paper. Incredulous, she sniffed it. Wow, $900 for two ounces. Someone had great taste. She unfolded the note with care and read the old fashioned, fancy handwriting.
You have served me well. I now have 50,000 reviews of my SVM and True Blood fan fiction.
A pair of blue eyes flashed red in her mind. Mickie forgot all about eating, taking a shower, or changing her clothes. She dropped the thumb drive and the note and ran to her computer. She had to read the story again. When she was done, she'd read it again. And again.