Title: A Fangirl's Paradise
Author: LNFPH4077
Fandom: MASH
Summary: A girl named Beatrice does a Mary-Sue, but doesn't exactly receive a warm welcome.
Genre: General/Parody
Rating: PG-13 (I'm not accustomed to the newer ratings system yet.)
Disclaimer: If I owned MASH I'd have both more money and more important things to do.
Archive: I'd be flattered – just ask first, please.
I haven't written a fanfic in years, so I thought I'd write a one-shot for nostalgia's sake and to see if you people can tolerate me. Then I'll decide if it's something I want to take up again. Moving on, I'd like you to know that I don't hate all stories of the Mary-Sue persuasion, just the bad ones. And there are plenty of bad ones out there.
A Fangirl's Paradise
It was a dark and stormy night; yes, they do exist outside of Bulwer-Lytton parody sentences. On this particular dark and stormy night and a girl named Beatrice was watching television. It was not a terribly intelligent thing to do, but Beatrice had convinced herself that the storm wasn't all that close because the thunder sounded distant. Never-mind that the lightening was almost beside her house. So there was Beatrice on a dark and stormy night, watching an episode of MASH despite the dangers of such an action.
As anyone who reads fanfics will tell you, thunderstorms are a fanfiction cliché. In fanfiction writing thunderstorms are not just inconveniences of nature, but a means of inter-dimensional transportation. Unfortunately for Beatrice her life had just become a fanfiction, and the author of that fanfiction decided to utilize the storm outside her abode for just such a purpose. So with a flash of lightening that filled her vision for a second or two, Beatrice was transported to a certain special place that the reader can no doubt name.
What the Funky Chicken of Oz? Beatrice thought, observing her surroundings Have I been kidnapped by minimalist squatters? This place looks like an entry-level shack... Her train of thought was interrupted when a short guy with glasses walked into the "shack." Now, who could this short guy with glasses be, hmmm? Right on the first guess – it was Radar O'Reilly.
Beatrice stared at Radar. Radar stared at Beatrice. After a few moments of this, he was the first to speak.
"I'll get the enlistment forms." He said curtly, and then turned and walked out of the shack (or to call it by its proper name, The Swamp). Beatrice wondered what on Earth he could've meant by that remark. No "Who are you?" or "What are you doing here?" or "Hey! You shouldn't be here!" What Beatrice did not know was that she was not the first Mary-Sue he had ever seen. He had learned after the first fifteen that it was impossible to talk them out of their desire to join the army. To try to do so would result in whining, threatening, blackmail or worse. One girl had sung an earsplitting rendition of Baba O'Riley to himthatwas especially horrifying.
Beatrice sat where she had appeared in The Swamp, beginning to realize what had happened to her and wondering what she had done to deserve it. Before she could get up and find something nice and large and solid to bang her head against, in walked three familiar faces. The names attached to those faces were Father Mulcahy, Colonel Potter, and Hawkeye Pierce.
"Oh my...another one..." the Father said mildly. Beatrice was starting to wonder why no one was surprised that she was sitting in a pile of nudist magazines on the floor of The Swamp.
"What-" she started to ask, but was interrupted by the star of the show.
"You all think it's a barrel of laughs, don't you? Just because it's a damned TV Show you think it'd be fun to come here. It's not fun! It's-" Hawkeye Pierce was gathering steam for one of his characteristic rants.
"But I don't want to be here!" Beatrice shouted pulling herself up off the floor. She was frustrated and confused – why was everyone but herself not surprised by her arrival? That stopped Hawkeye mid-rant.
"You don't?" He asked. (This was a situation he had not yet encountered with a Mary-Sue, after all.)
"No! I like to be in America, okay by me in America! I mean, I wouldn't mind my life becoming a fanfic as long as it was something good. Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, something like that. But this place," Beatrice made a motion with one arm swooping around to indicate The Swamp, "this place is a hellhole! It's hardly a fangirl's paradise! Don't get me wrong, I like the show and all that but not enough to want to get sucked into it! And while I'm ranting, why the hell am I the only one surprised I'm here?" The three men she had thought fictional until a minute ago stared at her, clearly understanding her rant and all the pop culture references within it.
"How did you get here?" asked the Colonel. Beatrice blinked, thinking that that question had nothing to do with anything.
"I was watching TV in a thunderstorm, and there was some intense lightening and...here I am."
"The last of the originals." snorted Hawkeye.
"Try not to be bitter, Hawkeye. Some fandoms get them by the thousands." the Father chastised him.
"How do you know that word?" Beatrice asked him. Father Mulcahy grinned.
"I've learned many things in the past few years, my child." he replied mysteriously. "Now if you're not Catholic, I think I'll be excusing myself." the Father tipped his hat to Beatrice and was on his way. As she opened her mouth to rant anew, the Colonel held up a hand to stop her.
"Whoa, there. Hold on to your potatoes!"
"Please don't call me Dr. Jones."
"Then what do we call you?" the Colonel asked.
"Beatrice. I also answer to 'Hey, you!'"
"No Crescent? Moonsong? Stardust?" Hawkeye snarked.
"All very nice names in their own right, but no. Just Beatrice."
"You're not the first Mary-Sue we've seen in these parts, Beatrice." the Colonel interrupted. "After the first thirty or so we've managed to get a hold on this thing. We've even figured out how to send you girls back where you belong. (It's lucky you didn't die; it's a royal pain in the behind to get the dead ones back.) Lightening is common enough that we've figured out that if you fall asleep in a storm you'll go back PDQ." All three looked outside at the weather. It was perfect.
"Lousy good weather." muttered Beatrice.
"So now we wait. I'll tell the padre to pray for bad weather. In the mean time, no enlisting! Got that?" Colonel Potter said.
"Got it."
"Then I'm going back to my office. Try not to pester Radar, you girls spook him pretty badly sometimes." Colonel Potter returned to his office to nurse his oncoming headache. He could swear this was happening twice a week now. These girls hurt more than they helped; they were distracting and dangerous. He decided that someday someone was going to receive a very angry letter full of exclamation marks.
Meanwhile, back in the Swamp, Hawkeye was grilling Beatrice. It was quite a delightful novelty for him to see a Mary-Sue that didn't want to be there.
"You don't want to enlist?"
"No!"
"You don't want to drink?"
"I've grown very fond of my liver."
"You don't want to be an OR Superstar?"
"I'll be glad to do what I can without going through Med school."
"You're not a slasher?"
"No. Are you?" Hawkeye made a face, and then asked.
"You don't want to see just how bad the food is?"
"I'd rather eat my own tongue."
"You don't want to play any pranks?"
"Well..." Beatrice said, contemplating the idea. "Is Ferret Face still here?" Hawkeye grinned.
"Much as I dislike you girls, you sure can pull some fast ones on Ferret Face. And there's none of it that he doesn't deserve." At that moment Klinger came in.
"Well, hello hello hello!" he greeted Beatrice cheerfully, the first person to do so.
"You know I'm a Mary-Sue, right?" she asked him warily.
"Yeah, I just heard from Radar. I wanted to come look at your clothes, see if there's anything you'd like to trade." He glanced up and down Beatrice with a fashionista's eye. "But there's nothing in the Klinger Collection I'd trade for what you're wearing." Beatrice scowled.
"It's not like I planned for this to happen."
"That's what they all say."
"Klinger! Out!" Hawkeye ordered.
"Going, going, gone sir!" Klinger replied, making a hasty retreat.
"There's Mary-Sue items in the Klinger collection?" Beatrice asked Hawkeye.
"It's mostly jewelry and tops and skirts, that sort of thing. He can't fit into their shoes and thankfully for all of us he stays out of their pants."
"And do you?" she asked.
"Do I what?"
"Stay out of their pants."
"I thought you were the only one who could be so vulgar, Hawk." noted BJ, who had just happened to walk in on the end of the conversation.
"Hi." Beatrice greeted him, realizing that there was no need for introductions.
"How do, Mary-Sue?" he returned.
"My name is Beatrice." she replied sullenly.
"Just Beatrice?" he asked, clearly used to more exotic (or more ridiculous) names.
"Yeah, just Beatrice. I've had this conversation already."
"Attention all Personnel! We regret to announce that lunch is being served. Be sure to reserve a table at Chez Miserables!" Beatrice's stomach groaned. She figured that since she hadn't had dinner long before she left home that inter-dimensional travel made you hungry.
"So, about dining on your tongue?" Hawkeye prompted.
"If you have a pair of scissors you'll lend me." she responded dryly. Her stomach groaned again. "We who are about to diet salute you." she said, snapping a mock salute at the Captains before heading for the Mess tent. Ten minutes later she was sitting alone at a bench and poking at the tray of food she had been served. It was almost – but not quite – entirely unlike food. While she was screwing up enough courage to take a few bites, she happened to overhear a loud remark made by one Frank Burns.
"Humph. Another one of those degenerate girls. She's probably a Pierce fangirl too." He snorted. "You'd think with as many of the nuisances as we get around here there'd be one for me." the Major sounded confused as to why Hawkeye of all people, a degenerate and an inferior officer, received all the attention. A fangirl for FRANK? Beatrice thought. A Frank FANGIRL? The thought was incomprehensible, like black becoming white or up becoming down. You could try to conceive it, but it would merely give you a splitting headache.
"Who needs a bunch of green girls when you have me?" Margaret asked Frank in a suggestive way. Beatrice heard the two Majors leaving a few seconds over, and tried desperately not to think of what they might be doing. Then she was suddenly struck with the image of Margaret as a fangirl, reading fanfics while eating Pocky and wearing a MASH T-shirt from Target. It made her laugh herself into a coughing fit.
Over the next few days Beatrice got the opportunity to experience every aspect of the Mary-Sue experience save joining the army. She tried gin from the Swamp, which tasted terrible and burned her throat and nose. She bunked with the nurses, who were friendly and loaned her anything she needed. She even managed to get to Rosie's; Rosie was the only person besides Klinger who had been happy to see her. (Beatrice learned that all the Mary-Sues put their drinks on Hawkeye's tab, and she saw no reason to dishonor this great tradition).
On her next to last night at the 4077th Beatrice even managed to pull a prank on Ferret Face all by herself. She stole into the Swamp with scissors, a razor blade, shaving cream, and a permanent marker while Ferret Face was sleeping. After about fifteen minutes of work Major Burns had no left eyebrow and the right side of his head had been shaved and emblazoned with the legend "Fuckmook."
The next morning she was eating something she had been told was bacon and eggs when the Major came up to chew her out. Beatrice didn't even bother trying to deny it and/or play dumb.
"Careful, Major." she warned him. "I'm not part of the army. You know as well as I do that you can't punish me until I enlist. And I don't plan to enlist." Frank glared at Beatrice, but he did indeed know that she was right. She and other Mary-Sues had declared open season on him and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. BJ and Hawkeye, who had observed her work and given a seal of approval (not literally; Frank would never have stayed still for that.), sidled up to her.
"Why only one eyebrow and half the hair?" BJ asked. Beatrice giggled.
"So he can't play the chemo card unless he shaves off the rest of his hair." The doctors stared. "Never-mind." Beatrice muttered, feeling like Emily Latella. Then she had heard the sound she had been dreading; the whirring of choppers bringing in wounded. She didn't need to hear the witty announcement on the PA System to know what came next.
Beatrice spent the next thirteen hours helping with the wounded. The whole time she was thinking about the fangirls that would love to have such an experience and wondering what was loose in their heads. MASH's cameras gave a dim impression of what a session in the OR was like, but there is no way that lights in a box could possibly communicate the oppressive abstracts. The ominous vibrations every time a bomb exploded too close couldn't be conveyed through jerky camera work. Nor could a TV show communicate the fear and the pain and the death that floated in the air and nearly knocked you flat with their weight if you stopped to think – luckily there was never too much of an opportunity to stop and think.
But perhaps worse was the smell. The smell combined the tangible horror with the intangible horror, which was truly terrifying. The OR's odor and the staff's ability to adapt to it both made Beatrice realize what a special group of people the 4077th was. Beatrice was reflecting on all this as she was sitting in the Mess Tent debating whether or not it would be worth it to find a cot to sleep on or whether to just give in and sleep at a bench in the tent. She figured that as long as no one tried to eat her that it would be safe to sleep in the Mess Tent, so she folded her arms as a pillow and put her head on them. Before she fell asleep completely she could have sworn she heard the characteristic sounds of a thunderstorm, but dismissed it as wishful thinking, figuring that she didn't have such melodramatic good luck.
Beatrice woke to the sounds of a Walker, Texas Ranger rerun. Damn, she thought, slept through MASH.
Before you say it, I already know; characterization. I'm just hoping that anything that isn't flagarent you can forgive and chalk up to the nature of this fic. And I apologize if I offended anyone with the "'No Crescent? Moonsong? Stardust?'" comment. I wasn't trying to make a poke at any one fic in particular, just at some of the patently ridiculous names people tend to give their Mary-Sues.
So now I anxiously await your constructive critcism. Any and all flames will be laughed at by multiple people, but if you want to flame that's fine too.