Who hasn't gotten sick of self-insertion, Mary Sue, author-gets-teleported-onto-the-Christa-and-eventually-ends-up-making-out-with-Harlan/ Radu/Goddard/whomever the author finds attractive, yada yada, boring as hell and twice as badly written fics? You get 'em in every category, and I get kicks out of flaming them (unfortunately, the stories do have their fans, and I've been aggressively driven out of the Misc. Movies category for flaming a Holes fic of that nature.) And so, to blow off steam, because flaming has consequences, I've decided to write this little number.
Disclaimer: I own me. And nothing else.
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It was a typical day on the Christa. We all know the setting, because we've all watched the show, and if you haven't watched the show, you probably shouldn't be reading the stories here. Let's move on. Harlan was being obnoxious, Radu was being self-conscious, Bova was being cynical, Rosie was making everyone want to put a laser beam through her bald, pink head, and Davenport and Goddard were doing the best they can, which quite frankly isn't really all that great. I imagine they could have found a way to work the controls if they really, really wanted to. But nobody's motivated to get off their lazy butts and do anything in the 23rd century unless their demise is imminent, in which case the writers of the show will come up with some sort of impractical deus ex machina and the problem will be solved with little effort but a lot of whining and screaming on the part of the characters.
Not so with the Mary Sue. The Mary Sue is a unique harbringer of doom in the fact that nobody recognizes her as a harbringer of doom, not even when it's too late and she's sucked out their souls and turned the fic into a horrible mess of bad grammar and worse plotline. Nobody wants to get rid of the Mary Sue, because she's gorgeous and perfect and the guys all want to make out with her and the girls want to get makeup tips from her and the adults think she'll be educational. And if a giggly twelve-year-old from the 21st century shows up for no reason at all--"Hey! Cool! We should keep her around; she'll be a useful ally against the Spung! We'll figure out how later."
And so, when the jaded teenage authoress appeared from nowhere, nobody seemed too concerned.
"Hey, it's an Earther." Bova poked a button on his console. The Earther wasn't a particularly interesting one. Most of the Earthers who showed up on the ship had waist-length crimson hair or scintillating purple eyes or something of the like. This one didn't, and therefore Bova felt she wasn't his concern.
Radu sank to the floor and began pounding his head against the navigation console. "No! No, no, no! Not again! Not more fangirls! I don't want to make out with her! You can't make me! I don't even like women, damn it!"
"I suppose we could make friends with her." Rosie eyed the newcomer critically. "She's not breathtakingly gorgeous, or unusually tall, and she doesn't have bizarrely-colored eyes, but...oh, forget it. She's boring."
Nobody was particularly shocked. After all, what use was a teenaged Earther with no Starcademy training, from a bygone era where there wasn't any evidence of intelligent life on other planets?
The one remarkable thing about the Earther was that she hadn't yet said a word. "Aren't you going to say anything?" Harlan demanded. "You're supposed to be all surprised, and ask where you are, and then be in denial because you're inside your favorite TV show...well?"
"I thought I'd let you take care of all that," the authoress replied. "After all, this story has a basic standard template that all its duplicates are written from. I know how it goes." After a reflective pause, she continued. "And my favorite show is 'Law and Order', anyway."
"I feel the love."
"Well, honestly, you guys have been off the air for so long that everyone's realized how campy the show was. I mean, compared to something like Spongebob Squarepants, it's genius, but quite frankly, you guys have been forgotten. Kristian Ayre isn't even attractive anymore."
"I resent that!" Radu scowled. The authoress lay back on the floor and fell asleep, having been deprived of rest for two weeks due to a term paper.
"She could be a valuable opportunity to study the civilization of the past," Rosie offered.
"So were the last six Earthers we dealt with. We've had more hands-on experiences with ancient Earthers than their contemporaries did."
"We could train her to help run the ship?"
"She doesn't even have the basic education we did, and she probably knows nothing about space travel. I mean, look at her; she's hardly a rocket scientist."
"We could sell her into slavery and use the profit to..." Rosie pondered. "We don't need money. God, aren't these Earthers good for *anything?*"
"No," said Bova. "And that's why these stories piss me off. We *don't* have any use for teenaged fanfiction authoresses from the 21st century."
That having been said, the authoress disappeared, never having said or done anything useful or even bothered to give her name. And life returned to normal, until the show faded into complete obscurity because it had been off the air for nearly seven years. The end.
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Wow, I can be cynical when I want to be. It's all true, though. It's so amusing when this kind of fic is written for Lord of the Rings, when the Fellowship has a bunch of giggly seventh-graders who probably haven't read the book trailing after it and clamoring to make out with Legolas. Thankfully, it happens less often in the SC category. It does happen in the Les Mis category, to a lesser and different degree. We call them...Eppie Sues. *gacks*
But I digress. I'm going to go be serious now.
--Jehan's Muse
Disclaimer: I own me. And nothing else.
-------------------------------
It was a typical day on the Christa. We all know the setting, because we've all watched the show, and if you haven't watched the show, you probably shouldn't be reading the stories here. Let's move on. Harlan was being obnoxious, Radu was being self-conscious, Bova was being cynical, Rosie was making everyone want to put a laser beam through her bald, pink head, and Davenport and Goddard were doing the best they can, which quite frankly isn't really all that great. I imagine they could have found a way to work the controls if they really, really wanted to. But nobody's motivated to get off their lazy butts and do anything in the 23rd century unless their demise is imminent, in which case the writers of the show will come up with some sort of impractical deus ex machina and the problem will be solved with little effort but a lot of whining and screaming on the part of the characters.
Not so with the Mary Sue. The Mary Sue is a unique harbringer of doom in the fact that nobody recognizes her as a harbringer of doom, not even when it's too late and she's sucked out their souls and turned the fic into a horrible mess of bad grammar and worse plotline. Nobody wants to get rid of the Mary Sue, because she's gorgeous and perfect and the guys all want to make out with her and the girls want to get makeup tips from her and the adults think she'll be educational. And if a giggly twelve-year-old from the 21st century shows up for no reason at all--"Hey! Cool! We should keep her around; she'll be a useful ally against the Spung! We'll figure out how later."
And so, when the jaded teenage authoress appeared from nowhere, nobody seemed too concerned.
"Hey, it's an Earther." Bova poked a button on his console. The Earther wasn't a particularly interesting one. Most of the Earthers who showed up on the ship had waist-length crimson hair or scintillating purple eyes or something of the like. This one didn't, and therefore Bova felt she wasn't his concern.
Radu sank to the floor and began pounding his head against the navigation console. "No! No, no, no! Not again! Not more fangirls! I don't want to make out with her! You can't make me! I don't even like women, damn it!"
"I suppose we could make friends with her." Rosie eyed the newcomer critically. "She's not breathtakingly gorgeous, or unusually tall, and she doesn't have bizarrely-colored eyes, but...oh, forget it. She's boring."
Nobody was particularly shocked. After all, what use was a teenaged Earther with no Starcademy training, from a bygone era where there wasn't any evidence of intelligent life on other planets?
The one remarkable thing about the Earther was that she hadn't yet said a word. "Aren't you going to say anything?" Harlan demanded. "You're supposed to be all surprised, and ask where you are, and then be in denial because you're inside your favorite TV show...well?"
"I thought I'd let you take care of all that," the authoress replied. "After all, this story has a basic standard template that all its duplicates are written from. I know how it goes." After a reflective pause, she continued. "And my favorite show is 'Law and Order', anyway."
"I feel the love."
"Well, honestly, you guys have been off the air for so long that everyone's realized how campy the show was. I mean, compared to something like Spongebob Squarepants, it's genius, but quite frankly, you guys have been forgotten. Kristian Ayre isn't even attractive anymore."
"I resent that!" Radu scowled. The authoress lay back on the floor and fell asleep, having been deprived of rest for two weeks due to a term paper.
"She could be a valuable opportunity to study the civilization of the past," Rosie offered.
"So were the last six Earthers we dealt with. We've had more hands-on experiences with ancient Earthers than their contemporaries did."
"We could train her to help run the ship?"
"She doesn't even have the basic education we did, and she probably knows nothing about space travel. I mean, look at her; she's hardly a rocket scientist."
"We could sell her into slavery and use the profit to..." Rosie pondered. "We don't need money. God, aren't these Earthers good for *anything?*"
"No," said Bova. "And that's why these stories piss me off. We *don't* have any use for teenaged fanfiction authoresses from the 21st century."
That having been said, the authoress disappeared, never having said or done anything useful or even bothered to give her name. And life returned to normal, until the show faded into complete obscurity because it had been off the air for nearly seven years. The end.
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Wow, I can be cynical when I want to be. It's all true, though. It's so amusing when this kind of fic is written for Lord of the Rings, when the Fellowship has a bunch of giggly seventh-graders who probably haven't read the book trailing after it and clamoring to make out with Legolas. Thankfully, it happens less often in the SC category. It does happen in the Les Mis category, to a lesser and different degree. We call them...Eppie Sues. *gacks*
But I digress. I'm going to go be serious now.
--Jehan's Muse