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Chapter Two: Rationale
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External Characters. It's not really their fault they get so screwed over.
Yes, we're back to cryptic, bewildering comments. It's more or less a requirement of surreal ficcery. And this fiction is nothing if not surreal. In the extreme.
"Which is a good thing," Jean says directly into The Authoress' brain. "Follow the rules for too long and you'll either wind up a basket case or a delinquent. Everybody needs some sky-time once in a while." She says this with such an air of certainty that it incites The Authoress to a bout of unladylike snorting; which, in turn, make her very glad that she is sat alone in front of her laptop.
Well, maybe not quite alone. Jean is once again on the other end of a mental-phone line – nothing to do with her telepathy, you understand. Characters and writers already have telepathic bonds, albeit of a different kind. Characters of all kinds need attention to exist. Without interest – both of fans and of creators – they simply cease to be, so their fundamental survival depends on being able to contact and steer certain people around a bit, no matter where they are.
There are differing levels of success to this. Think back to an External Character you really, really liked as a child, but who somehow never endured into the present-day. The most likely explanation for this is that they were starved of attention – literally. The Authoress once ran across an obscure External Character she used to know from her salad days. Not a pretty sight – he was approaching full out skeletal – which is why she encourages people to lavish underused characters with attention whenever they can.
Aside from Jean, the other person in the room is Terrestra, who is sat in the corner muttering. She does a lot of that, which is why she generally sits in the corner instead of next to anyone. See, she also has a habit of spontaneous violence; so being close to her is tantamount to an extreme sport like crocodile wrestling or bungee jumping sans the cord.
Terrestra is an Internal Character whom The Authoress created quite some time ago, and who makes appearances every now and then just to poke and make a nuisance of herself. She is one of The Authoress' more abrasive Internal Characters, and her current cavil involves being described as 'a ninja puppy-girl' by an Art Viewer. Her attitude rather matches The Authoress', though for entirely different reasons, and so The Authoress has no problem channelling her for a while, perpetual pest though she is.
Jean heaves a long sigh. "Are you ever going to get on with this? Or is the intent of this fic to bore your readers into submission?"
"I'm getting to it," The Authoress replies, a trifle snippily. An unwarranted parking ticket has made her more crotchety than usual, and she hunches deep into her uncomfortable white plastic swivel chair, thinking for the umpteenth time that she really should invest in something more comfy. Or at least something that makes allowances for her tail.
No, she's still human, as was mentioned before. However, channelling Internal Characters means that some of their traits tend to rub off on you – physical as well as psychological. The Authoress has literally hundreds of Internal Characters, and she instinctively channels them according to what state of mind she's in when she sits down to write. For example, if she's feeling obtuse, then she channels her Internal Dunce, and suchlike. Terrestra dropped in to see feedback to her art, and stuck around because she matched The Authoress' mood.
The Authoress knows that she doesn't really have a tail, nor is ever likely to grow one. However, she feels like she has a tail. She can literally sense it lashing back and forth behind her, still indignant on her behalf, though if she looked around she knows she would see nothing there.
If she looked with her eyes, that is.
Too many people rely solely on their physical senses – herself included. That's why she likes fiction so much. There, she can be anything she wants to be. Since, short of grafting a mirror to the end of her nose, she can't see herself going about her life all the time, she can only visualise it in her mind. And sometimes what she visualises is very different, and not at all like what the rest of the world sees. It's a perk of being a writer, and one that she sorely hopes other writers enjoy, too.
Deviation over, The Authoress cracks a few vertebrae back into place and sighs. She is wholly aware that this fanfiction is, so far, a very lacklustre experience. She is also aware that her disclaimer is still absent, even with Jean's attendance, and so states quickly that all characters and places not otherwise declared her own belong to Marvel, Kids WB, and the multiverse, respectively. That done, she flicks a pointed ear, and returns to the phone-call at hand.
"So glad you remembered me," Jean sarcasms.
"How come you reserve the mockery for me? I actually pay you attention that isn't bashing. Surely that merits some sort of respect?"
"Because you're a sucker and you need me," Jean says simply.
Stupid Jean. She's right, of course. That scene from her POV is still unfinished, and if she were to abandon The Authoress at this point in proceedings then The Authoress would be thoroughly bungled. She has no extrasensory perception of her own, save for abovementioned linkage with characters, and so the helping hand of a bona fide telepath is a valuable asset. Jean knows this. It's her greatest weapon in arguments with writers. Possibly one of the reasons people like ignoring her, too. There is such a thing as being *too* helpful.
"It's called being overbearing," Terrestra growls from her spot. She has fallen to sharpening one of her blades on a whetstone formerly of a pouch at her waist, and the feel of sparks in fur is a rather distracting one for The Authoress.
Jean humphs. External Characters don't really like phone conversations with Internal Characters involved, primarily because they can't bully them like they can writers and artists. Internal Characters, once they've been around long enough to gain a modicum of independence, can act unaided by their creators. And, since when in that place they know their creator is paying them a good deal of attention, and likely to do so for the foreseeable future, they feel able to challenge External Characters, even though the latter are far more powerful.
Terrestra is one such character, but for once The Authoress is glad of her terminal lack of tact. Even outside of reality The Authoress is far too polite. Terrestra gives voice to some of her creator's innermost grievances without thought to delicacy, as well as expressing some of her own to boot.
"But I agree with Red on one point, though," Terrestra breaks in, running a finger along the blade's edge as she talks. "You really should get started properly on this fanfiction doohickey."
Terrestra is not a chief participant in The Authoress' fanfiction. She has appeared in a total of one, besides this conversation, and even then her performance was lost to online consequences of the Great American Blackout. As such, she doesn't really understand the intricacies of fanficcery. She knows what it is, she knows The Authoress is called The Authoress because she writes the stuff, and she's spoken with enough External Characters to learn a few bits and bobs about the common downfalls of such a hobby. Other than that, however, she's completely in the dark on the subject. Which is both a good and a bad thing, since a different perspective is always beneficial when dealing with something like fanfiction.
The Authoress heaves a big sigh and brushes aside the ghost pain of a cut finger. Evidently, the blade was very sharp. "I know, I know. There's no need to gang up on me. But how to I start? Properly, I mean. I'm already two chapters in, and I'm no further to explaining what I'm trying to do than when I started. Plus, I'm sensing a distinct slide into ego-trip territory, here."
"Two chapters with you as the protagonist and you're only just figuring this out?" Terrestra is scornful, and Jean's stifled laughter isn't helping things.
It's difficult to keep Jean down for too long – yet another reason why writers don't like writing her. There's not enough angst to her – some, but not as much as other, more popular External Characters. That's why when she *is* included, she's predominantly relegated to the role of background noise, or else shoved into the part of Love Interest alongside thousands of Mary-Sues. It's unpleasant company to keep, she has confided to The Authoress in the past, and does nothing to help her image as Miss Perfect.
Terrestra offers no further comment, but swaps to the other side of her double Naginata, a lethal weapon that has little to do with the film franchise of the same name. It is in fact a long pole, tipped on either side by large, diamond-shaped blades. It was the result of The Authoress watching too much anime whilst first sketching Terrestra, but suffers from 'prettification' via two flowing, colourful ribbons attached just below both blades. Terrestra likes to complain about the ribbons; but then again, Terrestra likes to complain about a lot of things, so the ribbons stay.
"You could always start at the most logical place," Jean suggests kindly, taking pity on The Authoress and her plight.
"And that would be…?"
"The beginning."
"And prize for Most Obvious Statement of the Year goes to…"
The Authoress exhales noisily. She knows what Jean actually meant, but it really does sail close to the wind of Egoe-Trippius. She already has reservations about this entire venture, and is half-convinced that she should just disregard the whole thing off as a by-product of temporary insanity. They say hairspray fumes do funny things to a person, and she *did* walk into a cloud of the stuff in her mother's room earlier…
"You know, you're really starting to piss me off with all this 'self-indulgence' crap," Terrestra says bluntly, whetstone once again creating a spray of sparks that make her tail flinch out of range. "If you want to write the damn fiction, then write it. Don't answer to your own self-imposed boundaries. If this is an ego-trip, then it's an ego-trip. La-di-frikkin'-da. You have successfully deciphered a feature of your own writing. Now just get on with the rest of it before I try out this thing between your ribs."
The threat is an idle one. Terrestra needs The Authoress to survive. Since she's an Internal Character, if The Authoress ceases to exist, so does she. It's that simple.
Not that injury from any sort of character would necessarily *harm* The Authoress. Not in any physical sense, anyway. Characters are, by definition, fictional. They don't exist in the mundane realm of reality, which all of them have to acknowledge at some point (because fictional characters with those kinds of delusions of grandeur seldom last long), and so nothing they inflict could cause more than a ghost pain to The Authoress, like the previously mentioned tail and ears.
Psychological scarring, however – well, that's an entirely different kettle of fish. After all, whatever happens to her here happens to her essence – her inner personality. A body is one thing, but her mind is quite another, and she has no desire to risk it by testing her theories.
"All right, then. The beginning it is. But you still haven't helped me figure out some kind of validation for what the hell this egotistical claptrap is *for*, or what it's supposed to *achieve*." The Authoress realises she is being whiny, and tries to curb it. She marginally succeeds.
"Translation; why are you writing what you're writing, and what exactly *are* you writing?" Terrestra interprets, for the benefit of any reader not quite so much in love with their thesaurus as The Authoress.
Jean muses on this for a moment. Were it not for the sense pf presence still in The Authoress' brain, she might have though she'd hung up again.
The Authoress is prone to simply sitting down at a computer and churning something out without any prior inclination or idea, but this time is different. This is not some pithy one-shot, vignette, or interfic addition that can survive within three hastily-written pages. This is turning out to be a lot longer and more involved than The Authoress anticipated, and she knows instinctively that it needs a purpose. External Characters hardly ever bother with purposeless fiction. It generally meanders around in circles for a while and then dies curled up on itself, or written into a corner. Plot is more than a four-letter word. And for something surreal, a purpose is even more important than usual.
"You could say that you're deconstructing the writing process to help you improve your technique," Jean says thoughtfully. "Sort of a self-improvement deal."
The Authoress considers this. It sounds good, and she supposes it's true, in part. After all, you can't write something like this without examining a few facets of writing – your own included. But still…
"Meta-fiction." Terrestra's input makes both The Authoress and Jean start, and the former looks over to the Internal Character with interest. As has already been stated, Terrestra is not expert on fanfiction, nor has she ever exhibited much interest in it. This minor excursion into literature is proving quite the surreal experience for her, too, she'd like it to be known, and she's not sure if she'd ever like to become an actual part of one of The Authoress' stories if it's anything like this.
"Huh?" The Authoress says stupidly. Her Inner Dunce is surfacing, and she hastily pushes him back down again.
"Meta-fiction," Terrestra says again, this time pointing her Naginata at The Authoress for extra emphasis. "You're examining your writing, the writing process, and Evo fiction in general, correct?"
"Well, yeah…"
"Which involves acknowledging the fact that you're both writing and starring in a piece of *fiction*. Hence, meta-fiction. You can make your excuse for writing this stuff by passing it off as meta-fiction. Problem solved."
Sometimes Internal Characters can be just as frustrating as External; but sometimes cultivating them can reap unexpectedly noteworthy results.
The Authoress can feel a smile worming its way across her face. She doesn't bother to voice her approval, since both characters likely already know about it. Terrestra shrugs it off, but Jean mirrors the emotion.
"So, you're coming to visit, then?"
"I think I am. You *did* say to start at the beginning, after all."
And so begins an extremely bizarre journey, during which metaphysical sick-bags will be provided, if not disposed of after usage. Ugh.
Chapter Two: Rationale
=========
External Characters. It's not really their fault they get so screwed over.
Yes, we're back to cryptic, bewildering comments. It's more or less a requirement of surreal ficcery. And this fiction is nothing if not surreal. In the extreme.
"Which is a good thing," Jean says directly into The Authoress' brain. "Follow the rules for too long and you'll either wind up a basket case or a delinquent. Everybody needs some sky-time once in a while." She says this with such an air of certainty that it incites The Authoress to a bout of unladylike snorting; which, in turn, make her very glad that she is sat alone in front of her laptop.
Well, maybe not quite alone. Jean is once again on the other end of a mental-phone line – nothing to do with her telepathy, you understand. Characters and writers already have telepathic bonds, albeit of a different kind. Characters of all kinds need attention to exist. Without interest – both of fans and of creators – they simply cease to be, so their fundamental survival depends on being able to contact and steer certain people around a bit, no matter where they are.
There are differing levels of success to this. Think back to an External Character you really, really liked as a child, but who somehow never endured into the present-day. The most likely explanation for this is that they were starved of attention – literally. The Authoress once ran across an obscure External Character she used to know from her salad days. Not a pretty sight – he was approaching full out skeletal – which is why she encourages people to lavish underused characters with attention whenever they can.
Aside from Jean, the other person in the room is Terrestra, who is sat in the corner muttering. She does a lot of that, which is why she generally sits in the corner instead of next to anyone. See, she also has a habit of spontaneous violence; so being close to her is tantamount to an extreme sport like crocodile wrestling or bungee jumping sans the cord.
Terrestra is an Internal Character whom The Authoress created quite some time ago, and who makes appearances every now and then just to poke and make a nuisance of herself. She is one of The Authoress' more abrasive Internal Characters, and her current cavil involves being described as 'a ninja puppy-girl' by an Art Viewer. Her attitude rather matches The Authoress', though for entirely different reasons, and so The Authoress has no problem channelling her for a while, perpetual pest though she is.
Jean heaves a long sigh. "Are you ever going to get on with this? Or is the intent of this fic to bore your readers into submission?"
"I'm getting to it," The Authoress replies, a trifle snippily. An unwarranted parking ticket has made her more crotchety than usual, and she hunches deep into her uncomfortable white plastic swivel chair, thinking for the umpteenth time that she really should invest in something more comfy. Or at least something that makes allowances for her tail.
No, she's still human, as was mentioned before. However, channelling Internal Characters means that some of their traits tend to rub off on you – physical as well as psychological. The Authoress has literally hundreds of Internal Characters, and she instinctively channels them according to what state of mind she's in when she sits down to write. For example, if she's feeling obtuse, then she channels her Internal Dunce, and suchlike. Terrestra dropped in to see feedback to her art, and stuck around because she matched The Authoress' mood.
The Authoress knows that she doesn't really have a tail, nor is ever likely to grow one. However, she feels like she has a tail. She can literally sense it lashing back and forth behind her, still indignant on her behalf, though if she looked around she knows she would see nothing there.
If she looked with her eyes, that is.
Too many people rely solely on their physical senses – herself included. That's why she likes fiction so much. There, she can be anything she wants to be. Since, short of grafting a mirror to the end of her nose, she can't see herself going about her life all the time, she can only visualise it in her mind. And sometimes what she visualises is very different, and not at all like what the rest of the world sees. It's a perk of being a writer, and one that she sorely hopes other writers enjoy, too.
Deviation over, The Authoress cracks a few vertebrae back into place and sighs. She is wholly aware that this fanfiction is, so far, a very lacklustre experience. She is also aware that her disclaimer is still absent, even with Jean's attendance, and so states quickly that all characters and places not otherwise declared her own belong to Marvel, Kids WB, and the multiverse, respectively. That done, she flicks a pointed ear, and returns to the phone-call at hand.
"So glad you remembered me," Jean sarcasms.
"How come you reserve the mockery for me? I actually pay you attention that isn't bashing. Surely that merits some sort of respect?"
"Because you're a sucker and you need me," Jean says simply.
Stupid Jean. She's right, of course. That scene from her POV is still unfinished, and if she were to abandon The Authoress at this point in proceedings then The Authoress would be thoroughly bungled. She has no extrasensory perception of her own, save for abovementioned linkage with characters, and so the helping hand of a bona fide telepath is a valuable asset. Jean knows this. It's her greatest weapon in arguments with writers. Possibly one of the reasons people like ignoring her, too. There is such a thing as being *too* helpful.
"It's called being overbearing," Terrestra growls from her spot. She has fallen to sharpening one of her blades on a whetstone formerly of a pouch at her waist, and the feel of sparks in fur is a rather distracting one for The Authoress.
Jean humphs. External Characters don't really like phone conversations with Internal Characters involved, primarily because they can't bully them like they can writers and artists. Internal Characters, once they've been around long enough to gain a modicum of independence, can act unaided by their creators. And, since when in that place they know their creator is paying them a good deal of attention, and likely to do so for the foreseeable future, they feel able to challenge External Characters, even though the latter are far more powerful.
Terrestra is one such character, but for once The Authoress is glad of her terminal lack of tact. Even outside of reality The Authoress is far too polite. Terrestra gives voice to some of her creator's innermost grievances without thought to delicacy, as well as expressing some of her own to boot.
"But I agree with Red on one point, though," Terrestra breaks in, running a finger along the blade's edge as she talks. "You really should get started properly on this fanfiction doohickey."
Terrestra is not a chief participant in The Authoress' fanfiction. She has appeared in a total of one, besides this conversation, and even then her performance was lost to online consequences of the Great American Blackout. As such, she doesn't really understand the intricacies of fanficcery. She knows what it is, she knows The Authoress is called The Authoress because she writes the stuff, and she's spoken with enough External Characters to learn a few bits and bobs about the common downfalls of such a hobby. Other than that, however, she's completely in the dark on the subject. Which is both a good and a bad thing, since a different perspective is always beneficial when dealing with something like fanfiction.
The Authoress heaves a big sigh and brushes aside the ghost pain of a cut finger. Evidently, the blade was very sharp. "I know, I know. There's no need to gang up on me. But how to I start? Properly, I mean. I'm already two chapters in, and I'm no further to explaining what I'm trying to do than when I started. Plus, I'm sensing a distinct slide into ego-trip territory, here."
"Two chapters with you as the protagonist and you're only just figuring this out?" Terrestra is scornful, and Jean's stifled laughter isn't helping things.
It's difficult to keep Jean down for too long – yet another reason why writers don't like writing her. There's not enough angst to her – some, but not as much as other, more popular External Characters. That's why when she *is* included, she's predominantly relegated to the role of background noise, or else shoved into the part of Love Interest alongside thousands of Mary-Sues. It's unpleasant company to keep, she has confided to The Authoress in the past, and does nothing to help her image as Miss Perfect.
Terrestra offers no further comment, but swaps to the other side of her double Naginata, a lethal weapon that has little to do with the film franchise of the same name. It is in fact a long pole, tipped on either side by large, diamond-shaped blades. It was the result of The Authoress watching too much anime whilst first sketching Terrestra, but suffers from 'prettification' via two flowing, colourful ribbons attached just below both blades. Terrestra likes to complain about the ribbons; but then again, Terrestra likes to complain about a lot of things, so the ribbons stay.
"You could always start at the most logical place," Jean suggests kindly, taking pity on The Authoress and her plight.
"And that would be…?"
"The beginning."
"And prize for Most Obvious Statement of the Year goes to…"
The Authoress exhales noisily. She knows what Jean actually meant, but it really does sail close to the wind of Egoe-Trippius. She already has reservations about this entire venture, and is half-convinced that she should just disregard the whole thing off as a by-product of temporary insanity. They say hairspray fumes do funny things to a person, and she *did* walk into a cloud of the stuff in her mother's room earlier…
"You know, you're really starting to piss me off with all this 'self-indulgence' crap," Terrestra says bluntly, whetstone once again creating a spray of sparks that make her tail flinch out of range. "If you want to write the damn fiction, then write it. Don't answer to your own self-imposed boundaries. If this is an ego-trip, then it's an ego-trip. La-di-frikkin'-da. You have successfully deciphered a feature of your own writing. Now just get on with the rest of it before I try out this thing between your ribs."
The threat is an idle one. Terrestra needs The Authoress to survive. Since she's an Internal Character, if The Authoress ceases to exist, so does she. It's that simple.
Not that injury from any sort of character would necessarily *harm* The Authoress. Not in any physical sense, anyway. Characters are, by definition, fictional. They don't exist in the mundane realm of reality, which all of them have to acknowledge at some point (because fictional characters with those kinds of delusions of grandeur seldom last long), and so nothing they inflict could cause more than a ghost pain to The Authoress, like the previously mentioned tail and ears.
Psychological scarring, however – well, that's an entirely different kettle of fish. After all, whatever happens to her here happens to her essence – her inner personality. A body is one thing, but her mind is quite another, and she has no desire to risk it by testing her theories.
"All right, then. The beginning it is. But you still haven't helped me figure out some kind of validation for what the hell this egotistical claptrap is *for*, or what it's supposed to *achieve*." The Authoress realises she is being whiny, and tries to curb it. She marginally succeeds.
"Translation; why are you writing what you're writing, and what exactly *are* you writing?" Terrestra interprets, for the benefit of any reader not quite so much in love with their thesaurus as The Authoress.
Jean muses on this for a moment. Were it not for the sense pf presence still in The Authoress' brain, she might have though she'd hung up again.
The Authoress is prone to simply sitting down at a computer and churning something out without any prior inclination or idea, but this time is different. This is not some pithy one-shot, vignette, or interfic addition that can survive within three hastily-written pages. This is turning out to be a lot longer and more involved than The Authoress anticipated, and she knows instinctively that it needs a purpose. External Characters hardly ever bother with purposeless fiction. It generally meanders around in circles for a while and then dies curled up on itself, or written into a corner. Plot is more than a four-letter word. And for something surreal, a purpose is even more important than usual.
"You could say that you're deconstructing the writing process to help you improve your technique," Jean says thoughtfully. "Sort of a self-improvement deal."
The Authoress considers this. It sounds good, and she supposes it's true, in part. After all, you can't write something like this without examining a few facets of writing – your own included. But still…
"Meta-fiction." Terrestra's input makes both The Authoress and Jean start, and the former looks over to the Internal Character with interest. As has already been stated, Terrestra is not expert on fanfiction, nor has she ever exhibited much interest in it. This minor excursion into literature is proving quite the surreal experience for her, too, she'd like it to be known, and she's not sure if she'd ever like to become an actual part of one of The Authoress' stories if it's anything like this.
"Huh?" The Authoress says stupidly. Her Inner Dunce is surfacing, and she hastily pushes him back down again.
"Meta-fiction," Terrestra says again, this time pointing her Naginata at The Authoress for extra emphasis. "You're examining your writing, the writing process, and Evo fiction in general, correct?"
"Well, yeah…"
"Which involves acknowledging the fact that you're both writing and starring in a piece of *fiction*. Hence, meta-fiction. You can make your excuse for writing this stuff by passing it off as meta-fiction. Problem solved."
Sometimes Internal Characters can be just as frustrating as External; but sometimes cultivating them can reap unexpectedly noteworthy results.
The Authoress can feel a smile worming its way across her face. She doesn't bother to voice her approval, since both characters likely already know about it. Terrestra shrugs it off, but Jean mirrors the emotion.
"So, you're coming to visit, then?"
"I think I am. You *did* say to start at the beginning, after all."
And so begins an extremely bizarre journey, during which metaphysical sick-bags will be provided, if not disposed of after usage. Ugh.