A/N Random little thing I came up with. I'm Acty, in case you didn't know. This is not a Wally/Acty story, trust me. Just a fun little thing... Just read it. And yes, I tend to act like this sometimes. Sometimes.
Disclaimer: Don't own, never will.
Wally bites into the apple, flopping down on the wooden chair next to the bunk bed. Acty is sitting on the top bunk, laptop sitting on her crossed legs, scrolling down a webpage and occasionally giggling. Wally rolls his eyes and tactfully ignores her. Two weeks previously, a zeta-tube malfunction and some of Klarion's well-placed spells sent the Team to another dimension; one where they only exist in TV shows and comic books.
The magic portal (annoying little bugger) spit them out in the backyard of a white house near the middle of nowhere. Acty is the blond-haired, blue-eyed teen who inhabits the white house. She took one look at the confused superheroes and began fangirling.
Long story short, they managed to contact the League through opposite universes, and had to build an inter-dimensional portal to get back. While it probably wouldn't take very long for the League to do so, the Team was missing a few pieces and parts. In the meantime, Acty offered to let them stay in her own home. So Wally took it upon himself to watch the slightly insane girl while the rest of the Team went parts-hunting.
Acty giggles again, and then bursts into laughter. It's a slightly annoying sound, Wally reflects. It sounds like Rob's creepy cackle, but it also has a little squealing sound. He doesn't much like it, but he can't say that. After all, she's graciously allowing him to eat her out of house and home, although she nearly murdered him when she found out he ate her bag of fancy caramel chocolates. Wally found out the hard way how much she loves them.
"What are you laughing about?" he asks finally, staring at the teen dubiously. Acty glances up, and her loose hair bun bobs in synchronization. Then she glances back down at the laptop and grins madly. It looks disturbingly like Cheshire.
"Oh, I'm reading something funny," she replies, looking back at Wally. She's still grinning. It's freaking him out.
"What?"
"Oh, it's this thing; it's called fan-fiction. Ever heard of it?"
Wally scrunches up his nose in thought. "Sounds familiar. What is it?"
The malicious Cheshire smirk disappears, and a thoughtful expression tinted slightly with confusion replaces it. Wally briefly considers again something he's noticed about the girl—she can change moods faster than he can get from point A to point B.
"Well, it's like, when you like a certain thing, like a book or a movie or a TV show or a cartoon or an anime, when you write stories about it that aren't part of the show's storyline, that's fan-fiction."
"So... stories that fans make up?"
"Exactly!" She grins at him and snaps her fingers; it makes a loud click in the otherwise quiet room. Also, the grin is a genuine one; it doesn't remind him of Cheshire. "So, say I like this show, and something happens in the show in which characters A and B split up and go with characters C and D. A fan-fiction might be a short story that tells what happens to characters C and D while A and B are off galavanting somewhere else, and the show didn't show them doing that."
"So to write fan-fiction, I would have to smaller stories within the story based on something else that happened?"
Acty wrinkles her nose. "Not necessarily. I could also write a story about something that no one hinted to in the story. Like, an aftermath story where character A told his or her son or daughter about their adventures. No one says that character A had a child, but that would be considered fan-fiction."
Wally nods as he leans back in the chair. "Are there any other kinds of fan-fictions?"
Acty nods back, but Wally isn't paying attention. "Yes. There are 'what if' stories. For example, what if character A didn't do... whatever. How might the rest of the adventure have ended? There are also alternate universe stories, called AU stories for short. An alternate universe story might include all of the characters living in a historical era, like the Great Depression, or if the characters have some kind of special ability, they might not have that ability in a certain AU. Also, origin stories; why did the villain become the villain, and what happened that made him the way he was? And, of course, all-new, completely unrelated adventures."
"What kinds of fan-fictions do you read?"
Acty cocks her head, and then she grins again; it looks like Cheshire. Wally shivers. "I read fan-fiction about Young Justice!"
"Wait..." Wally nearly falls out of his chair. "That's us!" he gasps. "They write fan-fiction about us?!"
Acty shrugs as the Cheshire smile disappears again. "You have to remember that you guys have a TV show and everything in this universe," she replies. Then her brow furrows. "Although they did cancel in favor of that other show, which I shall not name because it is a curse in this dwelling."
"Fan-fiction?! About us?!"
"Yep. There's the six of you in most of season one, and then later we have Zee and Rocket, but you guys apparently haven't met them yet. And then there's season two with a time skip, which was a little annoying, especially since there's no Chalant and no one knows why, although I think it has something to do with Babs becoming Batgirl and all. Then we don't see Kal for ages, and we don't see you and Artemis until, like, five episodes in, and by then Roy's a mess because he can't find Speedy, and all that—"
"Hold on!" Wally waves his arms back and forth, staring at the blond girl incredulously. "Slow down! Who's Zee and Rocket, and what's a Chalant? Who's Babs, and there's a Batgirl? And why are me, Kal, and Artemis missing, and Roy is Speedy, what do you mean he can't find him?"
Acty blinks. "Whoops, spoilers," she remarks, and bursts into laughter. It's her creepy cackling laughter, and Wally is still glaring at her from the floor.
"Okay, so you guys will meet Zee and Rocket very soon. They'll be your teammates. I can't tell you who Babs is, but yes, there will be a Batgirl. Can't really say why you, Kal, and Arty are missing, though. Too complicated to explain at this point. And Chalant is a shipping name."
"A shipping name," Wally deadpans. "It sounds more like a word Robin made up."
Acty shrugs. "Well, he kinda did, but then Zee used it and so it's a shipping name."
"And what's a shipping name?"
"Whenever you ship a couple, it means you really like a combination of two people when they are romantically involved with each other. Chalant is the shipping name of Robin and Zatanna."
"Robin gets a girlfriend?"
"According to fan-fiction, he gets a lot of girlfriends, but Chalant is the only pairing that's canon in season one."
"Canon."
"Meaning the fan-fiction storyline matches up with the storyline in the show."
"So..."
"So when a story features Kent Nelson in the Helmet of Fate, it's canon. When it features some other person in the Helmet, like Batman or something, it's not canon."
"And a canon pairing is a pairing that happens in the show."
"Correct."
"This is the most ridiculous thing ever."
Acty shrugs again. "You haven't even seen crack pairings. Or, at least, what I consider crack pairings. People ship you and—you know what, I'm not going to go into that."
"What are some popular pairings?"
Acty counts off on her fingers. "There's SuperMartian, Chalant, Searocket, AKA Torpedo, Spitfire, Angelfish, and Dibs, which are all canon to some extent. Oh, and Wonderbird, but that's not canon until, like, the last two minutes of Endgame. Oh, Endgame. Not pretty. It was half the reason I got into the fan-fiction in the first place. Anyway, there's those, and then there's also Babymagic, Traught, Birdflash, Bluepulse, Wonderbeetle, Hummingbird, SeaArrow, Flashspell, and—gee, I could go on forever. None of those are canon. Well, unless Cassie and Tim broke up after Endgame, and she and Blue got together, but I have no reason to believe that it happened."
"You lost me at SuperMartian. What do those even mean?"
Acty giggles at his dumbfounded expression before explaining. "I won't get into the season two pairings, but here we go. SuperMartian is Conner and M'gann, and Chalant is Robin and that girl I told you about, Zatanna. Searocket, also called Torpedo, is Kaldur and Rocket, whom you will soon meet. Spitfire is you and Artemis—"
"WHAT?!"
Acty tactfully ignores him and continues. "And Angelfish, Dibs, and Wonderbird are season two. I'll skip them. And for non-canon, we have Babymagic, consisting of Zatanna and Klarion; Traught, Robin and Artemis; Birdflash, you and Robin—"
"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"
"SeaArrow, Artemis and Kaldur; and Flashspell, you and Zatanna," she adds. "And after that is season two again."
"Wait! Why is there no pairing for me and M'gann?!"
Acty has to think about that one. "There probably is, but I don't know its name. Not popular enough."
Wally groans. "Which pairing is the most popular?" he asks, only half-wanting to know.
He doesn't see the amused smirk that crosses Acty's face. "Spitfire, closely followed by SuperMartian and Chalant. Then Birdflash."
"That's disgusting."
"I'm sure you think that. Oh, wait! I didn't even mention RedCat! Or would it be Rade? Joy? Cheshroy? CheshArrow? RoyChesh? They never really got a super-official pairing name. Arrow-ire?"
"Acty?"
"What?"
"Kill me now."
"If it makes you feel better, at least Robin gets paired with all the OCs and you don't. Ooh, and DaddyBats and DaddyFlash! And DaddyArrow, but that's not as popular. Oh! MamaCanary!"
"Huh?"
"And let's not forget the fascination with the Dick, Roy, and Wally relationship. There's a lot of brotherly fluff in there."
"Fluff."
"Yeah, fluff. Feel-good stuff. Hugs and comfort."
"And they call it fluff?"
"And cheese. And corn. I secretly call it marshmallows for the heck of it. And there are many overprotective mentors when you guys get de-aged. It's always cute."
"Do I want to know?"
"And a lot of freaking out when you get genderbent, or soul-swapped. Lots of panicky fun. Whoo!" Acty throws her arms in the air and lets out a whoop, and then turns back to Wally with her genuine grin again. "And apparently, your dad abuses you at home, which gives people a free ride to hurt and comfort stories."
"That's not true!"
"I know that, you know that; in fact, every writer in the fandom knows that, but that doesn't mean that Wally Whump isn't fun."
"You guys are monsters!"
"No." Acty shrugs again and gnaws her left thumbnail. "We're just obsessive fangirls."
"This is the most outrageous thing I think I've ever heard."
Acty shrugs yet again as she adds, "And some people have a thing with death-fics, which are exactly what they sound like. They're sad stories involving one or more of you guys getting killed or dying. Often, they involve a pairing, so it's a romantic tragedy." This said, Acty leans back against the wall with a contented sigh. "I've written a few myself, but I only ever posted one. I'm really more of a humor writer by nature."
"Does the universe hate me?" Wally deadpans. "You mean to tell me you write this stuff too?!"
"Of course." Acty rolls her eyes. "I'm the actionfactionfictionfan, yes, that's all one word, and I insist that people call me Acty. I write mostly humor, but I've also written romance, a romantic tragedy, and my current big project is a humorous adventure with lots of room for angst. Oh yeah, angst. I love angst."
Wally folds his arms over his chest with a sneer. "Show me."
Acty shrugs and hands him her laptop. Wally glances at some of the titles shown under the author "actionfactionfictionfan" and scowls. "What the heck is a character study? And why am I a less-than-brilliant archer? I'm insulted. And really? The Heart Monitor? That's the best title you could come up with?"
Acty fixes him with a glare that easily rivals Batman's. "Do not flame me. You will regret it. I only accept CC."
"Flame? CC? My brain is overloading."
Acty sighs and yanks the laptop from his hands. "Tell you what," she says. "When you get the chance, start reading a little fan-fiction from a fandom you really like, just to show you what kind of stuff goes on in it. After a while, check out the Young Justice fandom again. I think you'll find it much less overwhelming. Heck, maybe you can even read some of my stories, and you might even like them."
Wally rolls his eyes at her. "Whatever."
He might have continued, but the rest of the Team enters the room at that moment, Robin excitedly waving around a metal energy converter. Wally jumps up and escapes, leaving Acty to her own devices on the time-waster called fan-fiction.
A few weeks later, after the Team has finished the inter-dimension portal and gone home, Acty receives a PM from a member by the name of YJfic-hater. Curious, she opens it and reads the message.
Dear "Acty",
Young Justice fan-fiction sucks. Your writings suck. Your ideas suck. I don't care if you don't like flames; live with it, because you're terrible at this.
Sincerely,
YJfic-hater.
Acty hits the reply button and begins typing.
Dear YJfic-hater,
Acty here. I'm glad you finally got into the YJ fan-fiction. It's a lot more fun than it looks. Give it time, and you'll be able to read Spitfire without blanching. Heck, you'll be able to live Spitfire without blanching.
Miss all you guys, especially you, Wally.
Yeah, I know it's you. Your username is a little predictable.
Love you all! Come visit, 'kay?
Acty.
A/N First time writing present tense, so let me know what you think!
