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Chapter Four: Negligence Issues
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By the time she gets of the bus, The Authoress has tied herself in so many verbal and mental knots that she is half-expecting someone to come up and offer help untying her arms from around her head. They don't, obviously, and so she steps down by herself, arms in their rightful place by her sides.
The Ambit is not an especially breathtaking place to look at – that's Subreality's function. Subreality is a place of places, and the Ambit is a place of concepts. If The Authoress were feeling pretentious, she would say it is kind of like a writer's Mecca.
Well, parts of it are, anyway. Likewise, parts of it are just dross.
The Authoress has not explored all of the Ambit. She doubts she could even if she tried. The Ambit is a constantly growing, constantly fluctuating point in Time and Space that tends not to follow a lot of the rules. It thinks some of the rules are silly, and that others are just for mortals. It is a living entity all of its own, like a planet but… not.
It's difficult to explain, other than to say it's everything you'd expect, yet nothing like you'd ever dream of. The best she can describe it as is an ever-shifting mass of tangible notions and abstracts, and hope that makes sense to the readers. The people who visit it are more like tics – occasionally irritating, but essentially inconsequential.
It is a humbling thing to be described as a blood-sucking little insect.
But back to the present. Rogue said to go to the Game, so the Game is where The Authoress figures she should go. She trips off merrily, pausing only long enough to point out that the Game has little to do with baseball, football, or any other televised sport.
Most of the time, at any rate.
Truth be told, she is actually rather relieved – and not a little grateful – to now have somewhere to go, rather than just wandering around here without any real purpose. She was feeling a little lost, out on the bus with no specific destination in mind and no real purpose to her visit. She had been a little worried she was meandering, or else turning into one of those hideous documentaries. It's much easier to develop some sort of proper strategy when you have a first base to run to. Exploring for exploring's sake is all very well, but it's difficult to set out a criterion of action in a place like this without some kind of deeper motivation.
Not that she'd ever tell Rogue that. Rogue's ego doesn't need the boost, and The Authoress' doesn't need the mashing it would undoubtedly receive when Rogue rebuffed the praise.
The Game is a facet of the Ambit that The Authoress does not visit very often. Even so, she knows where it is. Vaguely. Well, she stumbled across it once, but it can't possibly be that difficult to find it again. It's the sort of thing that leaps out at you without warning, stationary or not, and she has to admit that she hasn't been back again since then. But it can't be that difficult, she's sure.
The Authoress would like to point out that she is fully aware of the contradiction in the previous paragraph, considering what she has already said about the Ambit. The incongruity has been noted, and her toes have curled. There's no need to point it out again.
She wanders away from the bus stop.
She is not used to this. Usually in the Ambit, you don't really think where you're going; you just seem to get there. It's not teleportation or anything, like that, though. It's more like when you drive a long stretch of road, then startle yourself when you realise you have no idea how the hell you got where you are. The route is a blur you knew you took, but details are hazy and indistinct. Concentrating on the journey itself is a strange experience, and because of her general mentality, it's not long before The Authoress finds herself doubting her sense of direction after all.
"Bugger," she says to nobody in particular – mainly because nobody in particular is there to hear her say it.
However…
"Lost?" says a voice, which nearly causes The Authoress to empty her metaphysical bowels in surprise.
"Dwa - ?"
A sallow man is standing behind her. He is immediately recognisable as an External Character. His energy signature says as much, and when he smiles at The Authoress she gets the distinct feeling that he really, truly was not there a second ago. There is something hidden in that smile – a sort of predatory suggestion, if that makes sense.
In Subreality, the Ambit, and all places concerned with the fictional, External Characters are always recognisable by their energy signature. It's a sort of feeling you get just looking at them. By the same token, External Characters can always tell who and what is an Internal Character. Added to that, they can also tell to whom the Internal Character belongs, since all writers and their Internal Characters share energy signatures. The only woolly area is when shared Internal Characters come into the equation. Generally, they share the energy signature of whomsoever originally created them, but now and then there are characters who have gained enough independence of their creators as to be caught somewhere between Internal and External. That's when you get Wild Cards, which is an entirely different kettle of fish, and one we won't go into right now.
But anyway, back to the sallow man. He is looking expectantly at The Authoress, like she ought to know who he is. She peers, blinks, and then recognises him. "Mastermind."
"At your service."
The Authoress has never written Mastermind before. As in, ever. He has just never featured in any of her fics, and so it is more than a little disconcerting to find him standing here like he and she are best buds. Having random characters wander into your fiction unannounced is… just plain weird.
Mastermind cocks his head and gives a very uncharacteristic wink. "I was tired of being left out of things and I was in the area. So sue me." Then he shoves his hands in his pockets, reminding The Authoress of detective movies, with their long trench coats and hidden guns. "Do you have any idea how much XME fanfiction is out there?"
The question surprises her. She was expecting him to say… well, she's not certain what she expected him to say, but that wasn't it. "Uh, quite a bit?"
The Authoress is checking her Internal Characters, sifting through their ranks to see if she has anyone capable of holding their own in a fight with someone like Mastermind. In a real pinch, she could create a new one, but odds are it would not last long. Internal Characters need personalities, characteristics, and their own individuality if they are to survive in any sort of fiction. Anything less and they simply fall down as a Mary-Sue or an incompetent. As such, they also need time spent on them to gain these things – and if it came to any sort of skirmish, time is something The Authoress would not be in abundance of.
And yet, Mastermind has not made any move to fight her. And he seems to be on his own, without any big, burly backup…
"Exactly," he goes on regardless. "There are thousands of fictions out there – perhaps millions. It's entirely possible. But do I get a look-in as a focus-character?" He makes a raspberry noise, which *really* throws The Authoress. As far as she knew, Mastermind is a gothic type of character, not given to jokes and big on the whole mysterious inscrutability bit.
"Surely there are *some* fictions out there with you in them," she tries, hesitantly. Well, how would *you* sound in a situation like this?
"Oh yes, a few. I'm knocked out in most of them, and I stay in the background for the rest." He has not stopped smiling yet, which unnerves The Authoress slightly. "So when I heard someone had taken the time to come here virtually plotless, I decided to pop along and remind the fandom I'm still here. So go on, then. Describe me."
"Uh, you mean physically?" Ouch. All she has so far is 'sallow'. And what bearing exactly did the phrase 'I heard' have on that statement. Heard from whom? "Or do you mean from the fanfiction perspective?"
"I haven't got one of those," he says in a tone that indicates his true meaning is 'we already covered this'. "Surprise me."
"Uh…okay…"
"You say monkey-face and that monster under your bed might make a reappearance."
"Eep." The Authoress swallows and replies with what she hopes is a mollifying question. "Do you resent people for the monkey comments?"
"Not people, per se, but my designer comes pretty close. If I'd had a face like one of the other adults – even that Logan fellah – I'll bet there'd be more fanfiction out there for me. Do you realise how difficult it is with a face like this?" He points, and The Authoress shakes her head. "I'm stereotyped from square one. XME is a Saturday morning cartoon, with a target demograph to match. With that sort of audience, there's no way they'd let me play a hero. Even a repentant bad guy is stretching it."
"That's not true. Look at the Morlocks."
"Yes, look at them." His smile widens. The Authoress is beginning to think that his smile is inverse to everybody else's. If he were scowling, or looking apathetic, she would probably not feel so intimidated as she does. Plus there's the whole never-written-him-before element that is making her anxious.
Let's get something straight for a second. External Characters all get put through the wringer by fans. It is, in The Authoress' experience, the staunchest who insist on torturing their favourite characters the most – which might account for why there are so many fics out there where Kurt, or Rogue, or even Pietro are treated abysmally and left with psychological scarring by the end.
Yet, the characters themselves put up with this. A writer can torment, humiliate, maul – even kill a character in the name of fanfic. It's all good in the end; but whatever happens, they must stay true to the *nature* of the character they're writing. A writer who mangles a character by insulting them, or writing them *out* of character is technically insulting what that character stands for – its principle.
This sort of thing should be avoided at all costs.
Characters can be depicted evilly, heroically, madly, playfully - even pusillanimously, if you can spell it right – but above all things they must be represented *truthfully*. To do anything else is to prove your own ineptitude as a writer. And besides which, it ticks off the characters themselves. Which is why Rogue tends not to talk to many people these days – writers messed around with her core personality so much that nobody is really sure what it is anymore. Not even her, in The Authoress' humble opinion.
So The Authoress is not very keen on insulting Mastermind by writing him badly. Aside from him being able to attack her – no physical harm would come of it, but it's her own core personality that's at stake, here – she is aware that just because she has never written him before does not mean that she never will. There is every chance that sometime in the future she will find herself scribing him into a fic, and so it would probably be best for her if she doesn't stuff up his characterisation this time around. Call it a test flight of ficcery.
In which case, back to the test flight.
"Excuse me? What's wrong with the Morlocks? I would've thought they'd vindicate your argument," she says, not quite seeing where this is going.
"If you were to go back and look at the original comics – or even that short-lived XME one – you'd see that the Morlocks were originally a lot more mutated than they are in the show. A lot more *physically* mutated. Even Callisto got an overhaul. They were beautified – some of them even cut out because their looks and powers weren't suitable for a kids' show. But me," he snorts derisively, "I get ugly. True, Comic-Mastermind won't win any beauty contests, but at least he doesn't look like a primate."
This is obviously something that rattles Mastermind quite a lot. The Authoress feels sorry for him despite herself. She has always had a penchant for underdogs and underused characters. "So you have to rely on fanfiction because the show gave you a raw deal," she surmises.
"Precisely. Fanfiction is where all underdeveloped characters go to get a little consideration. But still, I get diddly-squat. And all because of this face, and the fact that I seemed to magically disappear in the show after my usefulness was finished." He sighs, and it seems to come from his boots. "It's difficult being a villain. Once in a while you find a script or two that doesn't make you out to be some giant cliché, but most of the time its all garbage. 'I am evil, because I am, and I'm just going to stand here telling you all how evil I am and how brilliant my Master Plan is instead of actually implementing it'. It's frustrating. But when you don't even get offered *that*… I wasn't even a true villain – I was just pigeonholed that way. I owed Magneto and repaid my debt by doing him a favour. Fans are willing to give characters like Gambit and Piotr a chance, even though their marks on the villainous deed chart dwarf mine. But me? Pah."
"Isn't it part of being evil, explaining your plans to the hero?" The Authoress blinks, and had she been an anime character she would have sweatdropped. "Whoops. Sorry." She rubs the back of her head self-consciously, as she's wont to do when caught out. "Uh…"
Mastermind shakes his head. "All the authors in the world and *you're* the one I have to talk to in order to get a little attention?"
She can't think of a response to that, so she gives none. Instead, she asks, "Do you feel better now?"
"This is a polite way of telling me to shut up, isn't it?"
"Uh, actually, no. I was just wondering if - "
"Well that's fine by me. I had an errand to run anyway, but the opportunity of actually getting a bit of fic time was too good to turn a blind eye to." He grins. It's more than a little disturbing - in a completely non-ape-like way, of course.
The Authoress resists the urge to sigh, since there's been entirely too much sighing already in this fanfic. Instead, she says her goodbyes to Mastermind, edges away, and resumes mooching along, wondering how the heck she's supposed to find the Game with nobody to ask for directions.
Which is about the time the rope loops about her middle, effectively pinning her arms to her sides and pulling her down to the floor with a bump. She yelps, and then shuts up quickly when Mastermind reappears, holding the other end of the rope and looking entirely serious.
The Authoress groans. "Let me guess; your errand?"
"I am evil because I am," he replies, without even the glimmer of a smile. "Plus, I have to work for a living, just like everybody else."
Chapter Four: Negligence Issues
=========
By the time she gets of the bus, The Authoress has tied herself in so many verbal and mental knots that she is half-expecting someone to come up and offer help untying her arms from around her head. They don't, obviously, and so she steps down by herself, arms in their rightful place by her sides.
The Ambit is not an especially breathtaking place to look at – that's Subreality's function. Subreality is a place of places, and the Ambit is a place of concepts. If The Authoress were feeling pretentious, she would say it is kind of like a writer's Mecca.
Well, parts of it are, anyway. Likewise, parts of it are just dross.
The Authoress has not explored all of the Ambit. She doubts she could even if she tried. The Ambit is a constantly growing, constantly fluctuating point in Time and Space that tends not to follow a lot of the rules. It thinks some of the rules are silly, and that others are just for mortals. It is a living entity all of its own, like a planet but… not.
It's difficult to explain, other than to say it's everything you'd expect, yet nothing like you'd ever dream of. The best she can describe it as is an ever-shifting mass of tangible notions and abstracts, and hope that makes sense to the readers. The people who visit it are more like tics – occasionally irritating, but essentially inconsequential.
It is a humbling thing to be described as a blood-sucking little insect.
But back to the present. Rogue said to go to the Game, so the Game is where The Authoress figures she should go. She trips off merrily, pausing only long enough to point out that the Game has little to do with baseball, football, or any other televised sport.
Most of the time, at any rate.
Truth be told, she is actually rather relieved – and not a little grateful – to now have somewhere to go, rather than just wandering around here without any real purpose. She was feeling a little lost, out on the bus with no specific destination in mind and no real purpose to her visit. She had been a little worried she was meandering, or else turning into one of those hideous documentaries. It's much easier to develop some sort of proper strategy when you have a first base to run to. Exploring for exploring's sake is all very well, but it's difficult to set out a criterion of action in a place like this without some kind of deeper motivation.
Not that she'd ever tell Rogue that. Rogue's ego doesn't need the boost, and The Authoress' doesn't need the mashing it would undoubtedly receive when Rogue rebuffed the praise.
The Game is a facet of the Ambit that The Authoress does not visit very often. Even so, she knows where it is. Vaguely. Well, she stumbled across it once, but it can't possibly be that difficult to find it again. It's the sort of thing that leaps out at you without warning, stationary or not, and she has to admit that she hasn't been back again since then. But it can't be that difficult, she's sure.
The Authoress would like to point out that she is fully aware of the contradiction in the previous paragraph, considering what she has already said about the Ambit. The incongruity has been noted, and her toes have curled. There's no need to point it out again.
She wanders away from the bus stop.
She is not used to this. Usually in the Ambit, you don't really think where you're going; you just seem to get there. It's not teleportation or anything, like that, though. It's more like when you drive a long stretch of road, then startle yourself when you realise you have no idea how the hell you got where you are. The route is a blur you knew you took, but details are hazy and indistinct. Concentrating on the journey itself is a strange experience, and because of her general mentality, it's not long before The Authoress finds herself doubting her sense of direction after all.
"Bugger," she says to nobody in particular – mainly because nobody in particular is there to hear her say it.
However…
"Lost?" says a voice, which nearly causes The Authoress to empty her metaphysical bowels in surprise.
"Dwa - ?"
A sallow man is standing behind her. He is immediately recognisable as an External Character. His energy signature says as much, and when he smiles at The Authoress she gets the distinct feeling that he really, truly was not there a second ago. There is something hidden in that smile – a sort of predatory suggestion, if that makes sense.
In Subreality, the Ambit, and all places concerned with the fictional, External Characters are always recognisable by their energy signature. It's a sort of feeling you get just looking at them. By the same token, External Characters can always tell who and what is an Internal Character. Added to that, they can also tell to whom the Internal Character belongs, since all writers and their Internal Characters share energy signatures. The only woolly area is when shared Internal Characters come into the equation. Generally, they share the energy signature of whomsoever originally created them, but now and then there are characters who have gained enough independence of their creators as to be caught somewhere between Internal and External. That's when you get Wild Cards, which is an entirely different kettle of fish, and one we won't go into right now.
But anyway, back to the sallow man. He is looking expectantly at The Authoress, like she ought to know who he is. She peers, blinks, and then recognises him. "Mastermind."
"At your service."
The Authoress has never written Mastermind before. As in, ever. He has just never featured in any of her fics, and so it is more than a little disconcerting to find him standing here like he and she are best buds. Having random characters wander into your fiction unannounced is… just plain weird.
Mastermind cocks his head and gives a very uncharacteristic wink. "I was tired of being left out of things and I was in the area. So sue me." Then he shoves his hands in his pockets, reminding The Authoress of detective movies, with their long trench coats and hidden guns. "Do you have any idea how much XME fanfiction is out there?"
The question surprises her. She was expecting him to say… well, she's not certain what she expected him to say, but that wasn't it. "Uh, quite a bit?"
The Authoress is checking her Internal Characters, sifting through their ranks to see if she has anyone capable of holding their own in a fight with someone like Mastermind. In a real pinch, she could create a new one, but odds are it would not last long. Internal Characters need personalities, characteristics, and their own individuality if they are to survive in any sort of fiction. Anything less and they simply fall down as a Mary-Sue or an incompetent. As such, they also need time spent on them to gain these things – and if it came to any sort of skirmish, time is something The Authoress would not be in abundance of.
And yet, Mastermind has not made any move to fight her. And he seems to be on his own, without any big, burly backup…
"Exactly," he goes on regardless. "There are thousands of fictions out there – perhaps millions. It's entirely possible. But do I get a look-in as a focus-character?" He makes a raspberry noise, which *really* throws The Authoress. As far as she knew, Mastermind is a gothic type of character, not given to jokes and big on the whole mysterious inscrutability bit.
"Surely there are *some* fictions out there with you in them," she tries, hesitantly. Well, how would *you* sound in a situation like this?
"Oh yes, a few. I'm knocked out in most of them, and I stay in the background for the rest." He has not stopped smiling yet, which unnerves The Authoress slightly. "So when I heard someone had taken the time to come here virtually plotless, I decided to pop along and remind the fandom I'm still here. So go on, then. Describe me."
"Uh, you mean physically?" Ouch. All she has so far is 'sallow'. And what bearing exactly did the phrase 'I heard' have on that statement. Heard from whom? "Or do you mean from the fanfiction perspective?"
"I haven't got one of those," he says in a tone that indicates his true meaning is 'we already covered this'. "Surprise me."
"Uh…okay…"
"You say monkey-face and that monster under your bed might make a reappearance."
"Eep." The Authoress swallows and replies with what she hopes is a mollifying question. "Do you resent people for the monkey comments?"
"Not people, per se, but my designer comes pretty close. If I'd had a face like one of the other adults – even that Logan fellah – I'll bet there'd be more fanfiction out there for me. Do you realise how difficult it is with a face like this?" He points, and The Authoress shakes her head. "I'm stereotyped from square one. XME is a Saturday morning cartoon, with a target demograph to match. With that sort of audience, there's no way they'd let me play a hero. Even a repentant bad guy is stretching it."
"That's not true. Look at the Morlocks."
"Yes, look at them." His smile widens. The Authoress is beginning to think that his smile is inverse to everybody else's. If he were scowling, or looking apathetic, she would probably not feel so intimidated as she does. Plus there's the whole never-written-him-before element that is making her anxious.
Let's get something straight for a second. External Characters all get put through the wringer by fans. It is, in The Authoress' experience, the staunchest who insist on torturing their favourite characters the most – which might account for why there are so many fics out there where Kurt, or Rogue, or even Pietro are treated abysmally and left with psychological scarring by the end.
Yet, the characters themselves put up with this. A writer can torment, humiliate, maul – even kill a character in the name of fanfic. It's all good in the end; but whatever happens, they must stay true to the *nature* of the character they're writing. A writer who mangles a character by insulting them, or writing them *out* of character is technically insulting what that character stands for – its principle.
This sort of thing should be avoided at all costs.
Characters can be depicted evilly, heroically, madly, playfully - even pusillanimously, if you can spell it right – but above all things they must be represented *truthfully*. To do anything else is to prove your own ineptitude as a writer. And besides which, it ticks off the characters themselves. Which is why Rogue tends not to talk to many people these days – writers messed around with her core personality so much that nobody is really sure what it is anymore. Not even her, in The Authoress' humble opinion.
So The Authoress is not very keen on insulting Mastermind by writing him badly. Aside from him being able to attack her – no physical harm would come of it, but it's her own core personality that's at stake, here – she is aware that just because she has never written him before does not mean that she never will. There is every chance that sometime in the future she will find herself scribing him into a fic, and so it would probably be best for her if she doesn't stuff up his characterisation this time around. Call it a test flight of ficcery.
In which case, back to the test flight.
"Excuse me? What's wrong with the Morlocks? I would've thought they'd vindicate your argument," she says, not quite seeing where this is going.
"If you were to go back and look at the original comics – or even that short-lived XME one – you'd see that the Morlocks were originally a lot more mutated than they are in the show. A lot more *physically* mutated. Even Callisto got an overhaul. They were beautified – some of them even cut out because their looks and powers weren't suitable for a kids' show. But me," he snorts derisively, "I get ugly. True, Comic-Mastermind won't win any beauty contests, but at least he doesn't look like a primate."
This is obviously something that rattles Mastermind quite a lot. The Authoress feels sorry for him despite herself. She has always had a penchant for underdogs and underused characters. "So you have to rely on fanfiction because the show gave you a raw deal," she surmises.
"Precisely. Fanfiction is where all underdeveloped characters go to get a little consideration. But still, I get diddly-squat. And all because of this face, and the fact that I seemed to magically disappear in the show after my usefulness was finished." He sighs, and it seems to come from his boots. "It's difficult being a villain. Once in a while you find a script or two that doesn't make you out to be some giant cliché, but most of the time its all garbage. 'I am evil, because I am, and I'm just going to stand here telling you all how evil I am and how brilliant my Master Plan is instead of actually implementing it'. It's frustrating. But when you don't even get offered *that*… I wasn't even a true villain – I was just pigeonholed that way. I owed Magneto and repaid my debt by doing him a favour. Fans are willing to give characters like Gambit and Piotr a chance, even though their marks on the villainous deed chart dwarf mine. But me? Pah."
"Isn't it part of being evil, explaining your plans to the hero?" The Authoress blinks, and had she been an anime character she would have sweatdropped. "Whoops. Sorry." She rubs the back of her head self-consciously, as she's wont to do when caught out. "Uh…"
Mastermind shakes his head. "All the authors in the world and *you're* the one I have to talk to in order to get a little attention?"
She can't think of a response to that, so she gives none. Instead, she asks, "Do you feel better now?"
"This is a polite way of telling me to shut up, isn't it?"
"Uh, actually, no. I was just wondering if - "
"Well that's fine by me. I had an errand to run anyway, but the opportunity of actually getting a bit of fic time was too good to turn a blind eye to." He grins. It's more than a little disturbing - in a completely non-ape-like way, of course.
The Authoress resists the urge to sigh, since there's been entirely too much sighing already in this fanfic. Instead, she says her goodbyes to Mastermind, edges away, and resumes mooching along, wondering how the heck she's supposed to find the Game with nobody to ask for directions.
Which is about the time the rope loops about her middle, effectively pinning her arms to her sides and pulling her down to the floor with a bump. She yelps, and then shuts up quickly when Mastermind reappears, holding the other end of the rope and looking entirely serious.
The Authoress groans. "Let me guess; your errand?"
"I am evil because I am," he replies, without even the glimmer of a smile. "Plus, I have to work for a living, just like everybody else."