Element Seven. Simple Truths.

Reading this fic was just about as painful to The Ghost of (Sub) Standard Romance as it was for Marcia to hear. But for the sake of his job, his sanity, his medication, the fanfic community, future publishers, and the world in its entirety, he kept his misery to himself as he sniffled and gagged his way through the massively botched piece. He seemed to be somewhere near the halfway mark with the end nowhere in sight, but how could he tell? He hadn't previewed the piece (it had been on his desk just that morning and that was simply it for him), and now he wished desperately that he had. It wasn't going much of anywhere at all, but reading it aloud did seem to be having the desired effect. He began anew.


"''Sallie let's go to the movies' said Mae one day while they walked in the park. Mae thought. 'Sure why not.' said Mae. 'But I can't stay for long. I have a lot of homework.'

"''Yeah damn Mrs. Idiot' laughed Sallie sarcastically."


The shade looked up for a moment to study his pupil's face. Already she was developing a facial tic, and an expression of horribly shocked, naked terror. It almost suited her, in a rather sadistic way ... he wiped his brow and sneezed, using the script for a tissue. The further he went, the angrier he got, and the redder his cheeks became. He would indeed reach a fine state by the time he finished this.


"'So they went. Trunks fell right out of the movie screen. Sallie screamed but Mae saw Trunks, and Trunks saw Mae, and chemistry went zing a ling.'"


A few sentences more and Marcia was curled up on the floor, staring at him with a wildly vague and bewildered countenance, unable to stop him from speaking as he wished. His melodious, nasal voice drove her nuts, whipped the sins out of her work, crowded them into her face and ears. Each word sounded worse and worse, and his compelling eloquence only heightened the melodrama and idiocy her fiction was simply permeated with.

"''Oh Trunks,''" read the Ghost. Marcia shuddered.

"''Oh Mae.''" He continued mercilessly, probing Marcia, forcing her to explore the sheer corniness of it all. "''Trunks I hate you a lot, but oh well,' and they kissed and were in love forever after.'"

"The end," he whispered, tossing the story to the floor. "Are you ready to hear what I have to say to you?"

There was no response from the prone, inert figure on the cold, damp floor. He hurled a deep sigh forth into the air and heaved himself toward Marcia, eyes harsh but next to tears.

"Do smart things," said the The Ghost of (Sub) Standard Romance. "Read your fic out loud to yourself. Read it to others. Get others to read it. Do multiple drafts. And above all, don't write junk like this and think you're one of the best out there, sheesh. Everything you do is so self-centered, self-absorbed. You say you're the best, it's your art, you're so good you don't need revisions like the rest of us do. And what's worse is that you won't see the irony. No wonder people hate you." He sneezed loudly and left the room with his tissues and pillboxes, and once more Marcia Laverne Whitaker was alone with only her computer for further guidance and company.