Dark: The fact that Morgan doesn't describe herself as Goth is a character flaw. I know she's Goth and I say so in the summery but her problem is that she's so desperate to avoid labels that she just can't face up to the fact that she is a Goth. She's not a stereotypical emo in the fact that she doesn't hate herself and would never kill or cut herself. She thinks self cutting is stupid and pointless. Sure she complains about her life but she knows that it could be so much worse and in a way she's grateful for what she has, she just never talks about it. Unlike the stereotype she doesn't think of life as depressing and pointless, to it annoying and it's not life itself that annoys her, it's the people around her. Most emos in fan fiction come into a room with their wrists bleeding to try to get attention but Morgan keeps things to herself mostly, if you look back you'll notice that most of her complaining in internal monologue. She looks like a stereotype now because she hasn't relaxed at all. You'll get to see more of her personality as the story goes on. Morgan isn't depressed, just grumpy.
I'm not going to tone down the first chapter for a reason. Again, it has to do with her character. Her problem is that she tries too hard to be morbid just to prove what a rebel she is.
Anne Rose: Thanks, enjoy the new chapter
Terrenchi: Thanks. I always thought that esky sounded a bit weird. It's obvious what cooler means, but I always wondered where the word "esky" came from.
Sorry I can't get it into seperate paragraphs, it won't save the paragraphs for some reason
Chapter 2
My first reaction was to shove Nicole behind me and snarl, if I kept her busy it would give Nicole time to run. The bitch stabbed at me with a sword but before it made contact it was blocked by another. Honestly, who on earth carries a sword in this day and age?
"Karen, down girl!" The second speaker was a short Japanese woman in rough leather armour with short black hair, identical to the bitch who just tried to kill me. I was impressed, I hadn't even heard her coming.
"Would someone just explain this to me?" I was starting to get pissed off. "And who the hell are you?" What the hell had I done to deserve getting killed?
My rescuer blinked.
"I'm Anna. Never mind, it won't happen again." Then she looked at my clothes. Oh great here it comes, the whole "oh dear she's dressed in black, she probably hangs out in graveyards and sacrifice baby bunnies to Satan" looks I usually get from the elderly.
"You're not from here are you?"
"No fucking duh. And where is here exactly?" I know I was being rude but I have the bad habit of swearing and lashing out when I'm scared.
"Middle Earth."
"You're bullshitting me."
"No, unfortunately not."
You could have pushed me over with a feather. I thought that somehow we could have ended up in a different country but a different time zone?
"Normally I'd spend the next five minutes arguing with myself and not believing you but unfortunately it does make a kind of weird sense." I explained what had happened.
"I'd better take you to my friends, we might be able to help you."
"No!" Karen wailed." They're Mary Sues, I know they are! They're trying to trick you!"
"We'll let the others decide. We can't leave them here."
"What's happening? Why did you try to hurt us?" Nicole turned on her "cute little girl" charm she uses around adults.
Anna sighed.
"You've stumbled into the middle of a war that's been going on for a very long time. If you don't come with us they will get you."
"And who is they?" I asked.
"Them. The enemy. If you're lucky they'll kill you."
"What do you mean if we're lucky?"
"They can do things to you that are much worse. I'm sorry Karen tried to kill you but she thought you were one of them."
"They are." Karen insisted.
"Karen won't be convinced until you come with us and I convince the others you're innocent. If the enemy don't get you Karen will."
I wanted to run, if there was a war going on I didn't want to take sides. I didn't want to die, I just wanted to go home. Maybe if we ran we could find the cave again.
"Come on Nicole." I sighed. In any case they were both armed and could just take us by force.
"I don't want to go with these people if they're going to kill us." She glared. Sensible girl.
"We're not going to kill you." I could hear the tense patience in Anna's voice. "If you don't come with us the enemy will get you." She repeated.
"How do I know you're not fibbing?"
"Unfortunately we don't have a choice." I told her. "We can't get back home remember? I promise nothing bad will happen." I knelt down and put my hands on her shoulders.
"You promise?" She asked.
"I promise."
"Okay." She said slowly.
Karen glared at me.
I felt like Gimli in Lothlorian.
"We should blindfold them." Karen suggested.
"No Karen. Either they're Sues and we deal with it or they're not and we can trust them. They're not sues, I can tell. You'd be able to tell too if you tried."
No chance in hell this bitch was putting a blindfold on me. If she was going to try to kill me I wanted to be able to see her
I can't remember how long we walked, I wouldn't remember the way anyway so blindfolding me would have been a waste of time. Nicole complained after a while about her legs hurting and asking how much further it was, I could see Anna getting annoyed. Nicole wasn't whining at her, she was whining at me mostly because she was scared of Anna and Karen but they had to listen to it all the same.
Well cry me a river and get over it, I thought. I could tell that Anna didn't like complainers and I would have been more sympathetic if I wasn't in such a grouchy mood but it was painful obvious that she had never been on a long trip with small children before. Nicole was keen to explore the wilderness at home but this was different. When she was exploring she could go where she wanted and turn back when she felt like it. This was like a long car trip with no car.
I've suffered worse trust me. You try going on a six hour car ride with her, it's all complaining "how much further" and non stop talking. You think that would encourage our parents not to take road trips any more but no such luck. I hated that holiday, we drove for six hours to a caravan park that was about as attractive as bum (1) hair and we stayed there for a week and drove all the way back. I almost murdered her. I wanted to fly but dad maintained the attitude that driving was better because it was more of an experience. Yeah, more of an experience of how many different ways I can kill you. I get grumpier on car trips because we're all trapped together with no escape.
Finally we got to their camp, though to call it a camp wasn't much a description, it was just a burned out fire in a pit surrounded by piles of blankets.
Near the fire stood the largest woman I have ever seen dressed in simple brown pants and a shirt. She reminded me of a bear, big, burly and not very attractive. She was almost over seven feet tall there didn't seem to be an inch of flab on this woman, she was all muscle like a female body builder. I wondered if she had ever taken steroids but rejected the thought, the muscles would have made anyone else look like a freak but on her they seemed natural somehow.
Her muscular arms were burdened with wood. She defiantly wasn't very attractive but it didn't bother me as I'm not very flash myself. Normally it wasn't the sort of thing I noticed but on her it was kinda obvious she wasn't going to win a beauty competition some time soon. She had tiny eyes and a large nose that looked like it had been broken at least twice, her mouth was large with thin lips and she had a scar across her nose and one that stretched across her cheek and across the corner of her mouth. Beside her lay a loaded crossbow. Unlike long bows crossbows could be strung and set aside, long bow strings always stretch if they are left on the bow for too long. At least that's what I've heard.
"So glad you could join us." She dumped the wood in the fire pit. "Who are these people?" She looked at us.
"Sues." Karen hissed.
"People we found." Anna continued as if her sister hadn't spoken. "Karen won't rest until they've been officially examined."
"Hello little mousie." The large woman grinned at me and I noticed a gap between her two front teeth. "Cat got your tongue?"
I hadn't noticed I was staring.
"She has that effect on us all." A man laughed and gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder. Oh that is it, I decided that I was going to tie bells to everyone. If there's one thing I hate it's people sneaking up on me. Or better still maybe they'd teach me and I could use it on Nicole.
"Get Crow for us would you? We need the whole group here."
Anna asked the man standing beside me.
"Already here." A boy my own age came out of the forest. He was dressed in black robes that were belted at the waist, his shoes were dark leather. He had black hair that was rough at the end as if it had been cut by a blind man with a dagger, his eyes were an amazing shade of electric blue which looked stunning against the black. In his hand he held a black staff with a dark crystal on top.
"So what's the drama?" He asked.
"Karen and I found these two in the woods. Karen thinks they are sues. They're from your time." Anna explained.
I was really starting to get impatient.
"Listen." I interrupted. "I think I've been really good about all this but I'm not standing here another god damn second unless I get some fucking answers!" I was on the verge of screaming, releasing all the rage and anger I had kept locked up. A bad habit of mine, I remember a time at school a few years ago when a girl that looked like a Barbie clone was a complete bitch to me, the most I did was insult her and give her attitude with the majority of my rage locked up until one day I punched her in the face.
She left the next day and I have never seen her since.
The boy called Crow pointed his staff at the pile of wood and it burst into flames.
"Okay." He wasn't even looking at me. "I remember how confused I was in your position."
They introduced themselves. They used nicknames for their own bizarre reasons, seemed a little flashy and try too hard if you ask me. Personally I thought it was a bit dumb. Crow said it was to stop the enemy from finding out their true identities. It felt strange calling someone an animal and they let me call them by their real names on the condition I used the code names in public and around the sues.
"I'm Falcon." The man who had slapped me on the shoulder didn't tell me his real name.
"The giant over there is the bear. Sometimes we call her mother bear or grizzly." He pointed to the large woman who called me "mousie." "Her real name is Helen Troy."
I chose not to comment.
"Part giant." She corrected him. "My grandmother." Considering the legends about giants I was surprised she would admit something like that so easily. Well that seemed to explain a lot. "I was born in Tortal." (2)
"The Tamora Pearce story?" I asked.
She nodded. "I was the Shang Bear."
"If you came from another universe, how did you end up here?" It also made her name more of a bizarre co-incidence.
"I was hunting sues there when the head hunter suggested I help out here."
"You know Crow. He was born in your world, he was born with the power to cross over and travel between the worlds, he came here and was trained to be a wizard." Falcon interrupted. "He was dangerously close to being a Gary Stu when we found him."
"Anna and Karen were known as Kestrel and Viper. Now Karen only responds to her name she hasn't been called Viper in a while. They were a perfect team when Karen was sane."
"We travelled the space universes, Star Trek and the like. The head hunter decided threat we should spend some time on solid ground." Anna informed me.
"What happened to Karen?" I asked.
"We'll get to that later." Anna, sorry, Kestrel promised. I could tell this was going to get confusing. I wondered if they would wear name tags but decided not to ask.
"So what are you?" I asked.
"We are the hunters. We are Mary Sue hunters, and Mary Sues fear any animal that is wild, dangerous and not cute." Helen grinned. She had a point.
"Mary Sue hunters?" Where had I heard the term before? Now I remembered. "You mean not only am I stuck in a fictional universe but I'm trapped in a fan fiction? Is that even possible?"
"It was a real event." Anna told me. "In your world it didn't happen but there is another reality in which Tolkein's story really did happen"
"What are you talking about?" Nicole asked.
"For every life changing decision you make, the other decision is played out in another universe. These are other dimensions. When a life changing decision affects the world as a whole and not just your life it's called a parallel universe, some parallel universes aren't even based on a decision, they're just alternate realities. Sometimes people start writing about stories unaware that they're not just writing a story, they're writing about a universe that actually exists. Tolkein was one of these people as well as JK Rowling."
So I wasn't in a fiction universe, just an alternate reality. It made a bizarre kind of sense.
"You know what Mary Sues are?" I nodded.
"Fictional characters who are way too perfect and destroy the original story beyond recognition." I shuddered to think those vile creatures actually existed.
Anna nodded. "Like professional writers Mary Sue writers aren't just writing about another reality, they're creating one."
"Pardon?" This wasn't making a lot of sense to me.
"For every story that is written there is a universe where it happens. Weather it's another dimension, a parallel universe or in Helen's case, another world entirely."
"I was wondering about Helen. In my world tortall is a fiction place."
"It is." Anna told me.
"Pardon?"
"When a writer writes a story that is purely of their own invention, a universe is created in which it actually happens." Crow continued. "The badly written ones are unstable and implode on themselves after a while, how long a universe lasts depends on how well it is written it is, because the better written it is the more detailed and real it becomes. That's why the bad ones implode after a while, not enough effort is being poured into it and there is a minimum standard for a world to become real and last."
"Stories like Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter universe will last forever because they're so good they have become real and the fans became so convinced that it was real that it contributed to the solidness of the world to the point where even if everyone suddenly forgot about Middle Earth it would still continue to exist." Anna again. But on the other hand if a teenage girl writes a poorly written unconvincing Mary Sue story and keeps it in her cupboard then it will destroy it self pretty quickly. Fan fictions are already unstable because the writer didn't actually create the world they are writing about and they don't know the characters quite as well though it can last as long as an original story if it is very well done. Mary Sue fan fictions are a lot unstable than original Mary Sue stories, there are a large amount of original stories that contain Mary Sues that go unnoticed because it's assumed they're not doing any damage because all the characters and the universe are original and it's assumed that they're not doing any damage and they fit into an original universe, they're not a foreign object."
Like the immune system I realised. A Mary Sue was like a disease and a story like a body and the hunters like an immune system. If the Mary Sue virus infected a healthy story the story would either die or be damaged if the disease got what it wanted. Like a body suffering from a disease, the body would slowly disintegrate and die if the disease was allowed to run its course. An original story with a Mary Sue was like a healthy carrier. Like Typhoid Mary, a person who carried the disease but didn't suffer the symptoms and didn't die even if she gave the disease to other people.
"So Mary Sue haters can have confidence that all Mary Sues eventually destroy themselves and if a character is corrupted by them at least their original self is safe in the original world." So I wasn't in the real middle earth but just a copy of it? Copy or not, this place was real and that's what they had been trying to tell me. I saw fan fictions like tree branches, the fact they were fan fictions prevented them from being individual trees. They were branches supported by the trunk of the tree which I saw as the original story. What a Mary Sue did in her own "branch" didn't effect other braches or the home trunk but it didn't make the pain she caused any less real.
"You'd think so, but this is where the hunters come in." Falcon spoke up. "Some Mary Sues become so powerful that they do so much damage that we can't just wait for the story to destroy itself and in some rare cases the Mary Sue becomes so powerful that she is able to escape her home world before it is destroyed. In even rarer cases the world isn't destroyed because the writer actually knows what she is doing and the writing is good enough for her world to actually exist permanently."
"So where do they go to?" I asked. "The one's who escape?"
"Here." Helen told me. "There's a whole army of them somewhere nearby. We were hoping they'd end up killing each other, if there's one thing a Sue hates it's competition. On the rare occasion you find more than one Sue in a fic there are only two of them and it's because they both like two different men and they're not a threat to each other and they're usually best friends. In this situation however you've got too many of them for there not to be competition. However they seem to be good at working together to a certain level in this situation. I wish I knew why."
"Their leader probably. The leader is probably smart, smart enough to get the other sues to listen to her."
"So you're sure we're not them?"
"Extremely." Falcon laughed. "You are definitely not a sue. You're no where near attractive enough, you have an attitude problem, you're smart and if you'd been a sue you would have known who were and either attacked or run for it and not once have you used the word "like." Karen was just being paranoid." I chose not to comment on his comment about my looks. I knew I was unattractive one afternoon at a family barbeque when my Aunt commented "Pity she's so ugly. She'll never get married if she doesn't change her attitude." It had hurt at the time but eventually I tried not to care.
"So what's the problem with Karen?" I asked.
"Unfortunately some hunters go rabid after a while. They've seen so many sues that after a while they go insane and assume that any original female character is a sue. It doesn't matter what she looks like or her personality, they assume she's automatically a sue if she's female."
"That's not fair."
"We know it's not." Falcon continued. "Imagine a poor teenage girl who wants to be a writer so she starts off writing fan fictions to develop her talents but her dream is shot to ribbons because a rabid hunter saw that her character was female and flamed her without actually reading the story, analysing the character or giving her a chance to improve. A lot of fan fiction writers are girls and some writers tend to write about characters that are the same gender as them and sometimes from the same racial background, that's why a fan fiction writer might choose to write about a female character. It's easier and what if she got the character wrong and insulted someone? It's hard to write a character that's a different gender and do it convincingly, that's where JK Rowling succeeded"
"It also explains why most Mary Sues are white. I've never heard about an African American or a Native American sue and the only Asian sues I've heard about is on the rare occasion a writer chooses to give her Sue a different racial background on the stupid assumption that a different racial background is somehow going to make up for a sad lack of personality." Helen brought up. "It doesn't matter what colour her skin is, it doesn't change the fact that she's boring."
"I've seen plenty of good characters that aren't of the same background as the writer." Anna commented. "Not all people write about characters that are identical to themselves."
"Wasn't implying there weren't." Helen said. "I was only referring to the sues. Writing about a convincing character that is of a different gender or country is a great skill but you seem to be forgetting that sue writers aren't that good yet. To write about a character form a different background you really have to know what you're talking about to make it convincing, otherwise you'll just end up insulting someone. Writing about characters that are different from themselves is a skill they might learn later on in life but at the moment they're practising and while a writer is just developing his or her skills, it's easier to write about a character similar to themselves so they can concentrate on developing other writing techniques, only a majority of these self based characters become sues because either the writers are living out some kind of fantasy or they hadn't learned how to write about convincing characters yet. And we're not implying that it's unoriginal to write about a character that is of the same gender and background as the writer because most of these characters are different in personality and looks to the writer so it's still obvious that the character is not a clone of the author. I've seen some really good characters that the writers have based on themselves, it just takes a certain skill to do it right. Once a writer bases a character on herself she will be tempted to make everything too perfect and good and that's what separates the Mary Sues from other writer based characters."
"If the writer's don't know what they're doing, does that mean they are innocent?" I asked. Were Mary Sues evil if it wasn't their fault?
Crow shook his head. "Just because the writer doesn't know what she is doing, it doesn't mean the sue doesn't. Like Frankenstein, sometimes the writer's can't control their creations. Even if the writer has innocent intentions it doesn't change who the character is and the damage she is doing."
"Where ever you find a stereotype of a particular group of people you will always find an acceptation." I put forward. "Take my Aunt Flo for example. She wore a lot of pink including a horrible hairy cardigan I thought she should burn, but she wasn't a bimbo, she was the biggest feminist in our family and had the highest IQ. She is my favourite relative."
"I thought you hated pink?" Helen laughed.
"I'm not the typical pink hating goth." I told her. "It's not the colour itself I can't stand it's the people who usually use it. Not including Aunt Flo most of the people I knew who wore pink were idiots and I can't stand stupid people so now whenever I see pink it reminds me of the stupid people, I don't have anything against the colour itself, just the people who use it. It's not personal."
"As wonderful and meaningful this discussion is." Crow said sarcastically. "What has this got to do with the sues?"
"Helen was right about the sues." Anna got everyone back on track. "There are plenty of Asian and African fan fiction writers, they just seem to steer clear of Mary Sues for some reason. No one knows why."
"Maybe they're just smarter than us." Crow suggested and I didn't know weather or not he was kidding.
"Actually you guys only seem to patrol the ones that are written in English." I pointed out. "There could be plenty of Mary Sues that aren't from an English speaking country that you guys just aren't aware of because the story is written in another language and the fan fiction website organises the stories so that they're all with other stories written in the same language so it's easy for a user to find a story they can read."
Everyone looked at each other.
"We didn't think of that." Anna said softly. "There could be so many more than we have had to deal with so far."
"We'll tell the head hunter as soon as we wrap up everything here."
Later when we were going to sleep, Nicole curled up next to me, obviously scared but not wanted to admit it.
"Morgan, what are Mary Sues?" She obviously hadn't said anything in front of the hunters because she hadn't wanted to admit she didn't know what we were talking about.
"They're like living Barbie dolls. They look nice and perfect but underneath they are evil."
"How are they evil?" She asked.
"They kill people." It tried to explain it. "They live to get attention, they use magic to control people and they kill anyone who is a threat to them. If they like a man who is married they will murder his wife so they can have him." I gave her an example.
Nicole didn't say anything but she stayed awake for a long time.
(1) Butt
(2) Tortal is a medieval fantasy world created by Tamora Pierce. It's unique and interesting, the stories are very different from other fantasy stories and the characters are interesting and realistic. I highly recommend her stories. Giants exist in Tortall as well as many other magical creatures. There is a group of warriors called the Shang warriors where each member is named after an animal and they are trained in martial arts and to use all weapons. Helen is a character I created but never wrote about.
I'm sorry this chapter was kind of pointless, it was just everyone getting to know each other and everyone being brought up to speed on the situation. I promise there'll be some sue hunting and fighting in the next chapter. I know I've pointed out that most Mary Sues tend to be of the same racial background but I don't mean anything racist by it or anything. It's more of an observation.