Hypothesis part C: Self-inserts tend to become Mary Sues because the writers do not want to show their weakness and are afraid of revealing themselves.

Patience put on her all-important glasses that morning, feeling odd about her dream. She then chuckled at the image of Harry and the guy in her dream that played the role of Harry's father having cornrows. Like a business man could honestly have cornrows and be the threat that he was. As she put on her long white skirt and her black top, Patience mentally mulled over the dream. After all, dreams were windows to the subconscious, right? Like when Patience had that nightmare a few years ago about her mom dying in Africa of some disease that was easily cured in the US.

Patience shook her head at the thought of her mother. Her black sheep of a mother. Patience decided to eat her breakfast and think of her friends to clear her head of her conflicted thoughts on her mom. It was then her oldest brother conveniently entered the room.

"Oh, Patience, I was wondering if you want to go to the Quaker retreat again this year. I know you do it every year, and if you want Ann and I could come."

Patience hugged her brother. "Did I ever tell you how awesome you are?"

"Well, you did always say I was your favorite brother."

"Hey, it's a tie between you and Miles. Sane brother who knows awesome things about science versus a brother who is known for throwing chairs at his principal, a fellow student, and a teacher."

"And he chased after the track team with a sword in high school."

Patience laughed. "You've gotta be kidding me! Then again, it sounds like something he would do."

Having her morning demons chased away by her brother, Patience ran out the door to catch the bus. Her head filled with thoughts of her crazy awesome but really nice brother, she did not realize what her actions last night had caused. Which Peter told her in detail, at lunch.

"-so last night my Aunt made my curfew even stricter. So my waste of a night tutoring Liz was not only hampered by a super villain, it had personal consequences in my life," Peter polished off his rant.

Partially because she was trying to change the subjected and partially because she is somewhat of a space case, Patience added on, "I had a dream where Harry and this guy who was suppose to be his dad had cornrows."

This resulted in Peter, Harry and Gwen laughing. Gwen had water squirting out of her nose at the thought, and Harry almost choked on his bite of his sandwich. Peter just collapsed on the table.

"That is-" chuckle "one of the-" peal of laughter "most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Thanks for taking my mind off last night," Peter said, gathering his composure. The sight of the man who had yelled at the Vulture and was a hardened business man with that type of hair was as ridiculous to him as Sally being a super heroine.

"Hey, I don't take credit for what my crazy mind produces in the middle of the night. Or when I'm tired. Or when I've had a lot of sugar. I've done some crazy stuff after eating lots and lots of sugar."

"Like what?" Gwen asked with morbid curiosity.

"Oh, braiding a bunch of people's hair is just an example. Which is why I try to limit myself now, and why I stay away from drugs and alcohol as much as possible." Patience did not add her other reason for staying away from the stuff when at her old school plenty drank alcohol; her father figure was in AA and used to drink and do every drug under the sun except heroine, and he only met her and her mother ten years after he cleaned himself up and has since drilled it into her that it almost screwed up his life.

Getting back to the original subject, Harry asked, "So what are you going to do about tutoring Liz?"

"I told her that if she wants to be tutored, she could come to Doc Conner's lab. I doubt she'll come, though."

"Well, if she refuses help that's her problem. I mean, if she wants to waste her life and not try to get into college she can. If she wants to work harder and actually care about school, that's her choice too," Patience advised.

"Thanks. Just don't call my home if you hear about super villain attacks though, ok? I don't want to worry my aunt," Peter commented.

"Why do you live with your aunt?"

Suddenly, Peter seemed even more withdrawn and had a depressed air around him. "My, uh, parents died when I was younger, and my uncle died last May."

Patience's face sobered at the emotional wounds she had opened up. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"It's ok."

Thankfully for Patience, the bell rang then. Everyone went their separate ways, and nobody was able to talk until they reconvened for the afternoon workout, minus Peter of course.

Deciding she could not make up or extract a workout from her workout book, Patience continued to show them how to use the erg then instructed them to do twenty minutes of steady state and pull a few power tens. At their blank stares, Patience decided to explain what they were from her erg in the center.

"Steady state is supposed to be 20 to 25 seconds above your 2k split. But since you guys haven't done a 2k yet, you'll be pulling whatever feels decently hard but doesn't seem like you'll die. It's more likely to make you go through a constant stream of sweat rather than make you exhausted, but it should still be hard. I'll be trying for a split of 2:10-2:15, but you guys should probably aim higher."

"What's a split?" Gwen asked, absolutely bewildered by all the rowing terminology thrown at her so quickly.

"It's how long it takes you to row 500 meters. It's the large number on your display, see? The one on the top right is your strokes per a minute, which on an erg race should be around 30, but today we'll work at a 20-22. Your display changes is you press the button or if you set your erg for a certain amount of meters, but currently the top right has the time spent rowing and the bottom has meters rowed and predicted amount of meters."

After that explanation, they began to erg. Patience wanted to talk to the others, but decided to focus on mentally counting so as to not mess up the timing and ratio, which if done badly would result in more exhaustion with little power output. As her erg was in the middle, nobody talked while they pulled steady state rowing.

Sneaking glances at her two new friends, Patience realized that Gwen had better technique, but was not holding her arms at the right level or putting enough power into her legs; instead, she relied on her arms for most of the power. Looking at Harry, Patience saw that he rowed with a more powerful stroke, but he opened up his back before his legs were fully down and his back was awkwardly curved. Patience gave small commands to them to help them improve their stroke, but Patience did not expect them to be perfect at it on their second day. After all, even erging required much technique, and an erg did not float. However, it was highly unlikely that any of them would actually row in a boat unless they tried out for a team in college. Still, technique was important if they wanted to use every inch of their power. Measuring the power, however, led to another issue: knowing how much they already had. This led her to an announcement to her little work out group at the end of the 'practice'. "Alright guys, on Thursday we are going to do a 2k!"

At this, they shrugged. Gwen asked, "So what will we do tomorrow, then?"

"Prepare for a 2k. We'll do a mock one, just to get you guys ready to realize how it will be like."

At that, the two friends shrugged and went to their respective locker rooms to shower up.

Gwen walked up to the entrance of ESU by herself, as Peter had not been on the bus. Opening the door, she realized Peter had arrived early.

"Ah, Gwen, right on time. I need you to help Eddie with his attempt to work on Max's cure," Dr. Martha Conners ordered in a neutral tone, carefully hiding her guilt. Gwen put down her backpack next to her seat, and sat down as Eddie told her what to do.

A few minutes into the work, Eddie jovially asked, "So, is school so bad you feel the need to wash yourself of it before you come here?"

Gwen looked at her damp hair and laughed. "No, it's just that there's this new kid at school I befriended who convinced Harry and me to do post-school workouts with her. We started this week, and sweat is not the best smell."

Eddie raised an eyebrow and asked with interest. "A new friend? You, Pete and Harry have been an inseparable group with nobody else as friends except yours-truly."

"There's Sha Shan."

"Alright, I'll give you that. But you don't seem to hang out with her that often."

"Fair enough." It was then that thunder rumbled, and Liz entered the lab.

"Petey?" she asked.

The rest of that encounter happens canonically. We are finished episode 2. When enough changes have occurred, scenes will occur without a mention of the self insert.

Also, many thanks to Songbird of the End for beta'ing this entire fanfic so far. Otherwise this would be littered with overlooked grammar and spelling mistakes, and may have contained inconsistant characterizations.