In the dark of the room the man sits in front of his computer screen. Typing.
-Click-click-click-click-
cl-
He becomes aware of your presence and half-turns. He does not seem surprised to see you.
"Ah. Good to finally meet in person. Sorry it has to be like this. This must be quite jarring for you. I normally let Rocket and Gamora guard the forth wall for me, it's inherently dangerous terrain, liminal the archaeologist in me would say. There are things that guard it. But this is important and Gamora and Rocket are… Indisposed. Please don't turn around."
"I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the story. When people leave supportive comments, it really means the world to me. I'm particularly grateful that Rocket's 'So what else can you do' Soliloquy went down so well. You know, that was the very first piece of this fanfiction I wrote, over a year ago, the week Guardians of The Galaxy came out in cinemas. It was a test, an audition if you like: I didn't want to write the story I had in my mind unless I could get Rocket sounding right. Quill I knew I could write, Drax and Groot as well, but the reason I keep using Gamora and Rocket as the fourth-wall boarder-guard is that I'm always less sure if I'm getting them right. That's why they got the first chapter; I needed to know I could get the chemistry between them. They have little interaction in the film, and it's doubtful if you could even really call them friends, but given that very similar horrors the film makes it clear that they both have in their pasts, it would be odd if they never bonded over it. They have to. It's pretty much in the rules of storytelling."
The man sighs, and turns back to the screen, the dull white of the monitor is the only light in the room, and it reflects of his glasses brilliantly leaving the rest of his face more or less hidden. Just the faintest hint of long curling hair and needlessly nerdy beard-growth framing those reflections of the screen as he scrolls through the comments section on a certain fanfiction site.
"People like rules, as a rule. In their stories. Life is all too often cruel, violent, harsh and above all random. Show people a story of horror and tragedy, and it won't perturb them, so long as it works on rules they can relate to. The teenagers transgress a social norm, so the serial killer gets them. The man has an affair, so his marriage collapses and he's falsely accused of murder when his wife disappears. The soldier is arrogant in the certainty of his victory, so it's him that gets it when they are ambushed, not the rest of his squad. Neat, tidy rules. Because they make you feel safe. In real life, the person most likely to murder you is a member of your own family, anyone could be subject to a marital break up or miscarriage of justice no matter how nice or loyal they are, and in warzones people die for no reason whatsoever. It's just random chance. And that is what scares people. You make the events of a story random, and people get disturbed by it, because that's not the way stories work. That's the one important difference between fact and fiction: fiction has to make sense.
"And knowledge only ever adds, as with any art. Knowing how the story is crafted is like knowing the secrets behind an aeroplanes flight or the reason for a certain flower's colouration: knowing doesn't take anything away from the mystery, it only ever adds. I think that's why fan sites and sites like tv tropes are so popular. Talking about the rules of the story is fun. It gives people the tools to make their own stories, or take apart old ones in new ways to wring new meanings from them, and in a world that is often bleak and cruel having a mind that can take things apart and build a working story out of them is a good survival tool. Like Gaiman said, ""Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." The rules of stories matter."
The glasses flash, the fan-fiction logo reflecting in each one, hiding all emotion in those eyes.
"Here are the basic rules of 'A Bit of Both.'
"Rule one: every chapter gets a soundtrack, pop or rock, pre-1989. That's basic, really. It is a Guardians of the Galaxy fic after all.
"Rule Two: it is an ensemble story: everyone gets their turn at being the hero, at saving the day. No one character gets to hog all the limelight, and no one gets left out. Even Groot gets his solo chapter, although I must say that one may have to wait a while, because the dialogue is giving me a little… trouble.
"Rule Three: Quill saves the Day. It may be an ensemble cast, but Starlord is the leader, so he gets to lead. Not because he's the best or smartest or strongest or most ruthless, but because he's not. Because he's the mental mid-ground between the others. Because if he didn't the team would split up. He's like the neutrons in the nucleus of an atom: they don't seem the most important in determining the elements behaviour until you image what it would be like if they weren't there and suddenly you've irradiated your crotch. And, because, he unfailingly means well without being too much of a clean cut goody-two shoes. The fic is called A Bit of Both, after all.
"Rule Four: Gamora is the conscience of the group, but maybe that's because she's trying to make up for her past. She is the one who wants to hand the stone over to Nova, and before that the one trying to keep it away from Thanos. Getting rich in the processes would be nice, but it was mostly a new start for her, breaking bonds with Ronan and her step-father. She makes amends for her past, in thought and deed… even if those deeds sometimes drift over into darker territory than Quill would like. She's the moral one, but she's a pragmatist and a utilitarian. She knows that sometimes doing the right thing means getting one's hands dirty. Quill trusts his gut as to whether a deed is good or bad, Gamora steps back and looks at the consequences. Neither of those are bad things, but there is the difference.
"Rule Five: Drax's past. He never gets away from it, and it never gets satisfactorily resolved, not to the very end. Because what do you do with a man seeking vengeance after he's gotten it? He needs vengeance, it dives his story. So that never changes. That said, he is a far more entertaining and interesting revenge-seeker than many, and his desire to act as a father and his failure to understand metaphor means that he'll always be there for the others: he may occasionally endanger them trying to get revenge, but he said he would be honoured to fight and die for them, and he meant that as entirely literally as anything else he says.
"Rule Six: well, in the big guy's own words; 'I am Groot I am Groot I am Groot'. Frankly, I don't think I can put it any better that that, so let's move on. Rule seven." Says the man, glasses flashing. "Rocket."
He sighs.
"It's funny, really. How deep we go into these rules for stories. In our hearts. Like I've said about a dozen times so far in this aside, it think the reason we like stories that run on rules is that it shields us from just how random life can be: the teen transgresses, and so is punished by the monster of the week. It's not there to scare teens into not transgressing: they teenagers, that's the point of being a teenager. The reason the teens have to transgress to get murdered in the slasher flick isn't to scare real teens away from breaking society's rules. It far more basic that a scare-em-straight story: its to help convince the audience that the slasher in the bushes won't get them because they haven't transgressed. It's a safety blanket: nothing bad can happen to me because I'm a nice person. The blood-sucking lawyer and scheming computer programmer get eaten by the dinosaurs, the Nazi's open the ark and get their faces melted, the hitchhikers choose not to stay off the moor, Lot's wife turns back when told not too: it's like the famous quote in the Dark Knight, no one panics when awful things happen, so long as they are part of the plan. Bad things happening is part of many stories, but if it happens to someone who hasn't done anything to deserve it, it's not narratively satisfying. If bad things happen to a goody two-shoes, people don't sympathise: no one cares when bad things happen to Mycella, but people feel genuinely sorry for Theon Greyjoy, not in spite of the awful things he does, but because of them. The best character in Misfits was Nathan, because he was the biggest twat but you still felt sorry for him. People like a tragic villain, and if the tragic villain just gets shat on by life hard enough, he stops being a villain at all. Tell me truthfully if you had to pick, Thor or Loki? No one will accept it if life just decides to dick Groot over, because everyone feels that that is instinctively unfair. And if life was cruel to Groot, you'd feel bad for him, sure… but not as bad as you'd feel for Rocket."
"None of you love Rocket despite him being a jerk: you love him because of it. And when that scene happens in the bar on Knowhere in the film and he opens up about his awful, awful past, you feel all the more for him because he was such a dick about it. And it gives us catharsis to see it, that scene at the end where Drax pets him… hurt comfort fic's exist for a reason: we want to see the cute ones broken. If we're lucky and the author is kind, we'll see them re-made, stronger and better and wiser than before… but that's a big if… and the audience would have to want it…"
The man's glasses flashed, reflecting nothing but the comments people had left on the story so far.
"Rocket suffers. Now get out of my room, and do try not to disturb the boxes on the way out." He says, as for the first time you notice the grey-wipe-clean crates and their single keyhole logo.
-Click-click-click-click-
You realize just a moment too late that that sound is too mechanical to be a keyboard. Or is it too organic? It's almost like…. Scissors? Segmented Arms? You think it's coming from right behind you.
You turn to look.
A sigh.
"I did tell you only those who transgress get punished. Lot's wife and all that. Inherently dangerous terrain. Liminal. I'm so sorry, I'm so very sorry, but I did mention the things, and I did warn you not to turn around..."
Click.