Glossary of Terms
Errors: Miscasts. Characters brought into existence by the spelling mistakes of the Author. Most resent the reality of their situation and become violent.
Fandom Abuse: There are two main forms, Positive!Abuse, and Negative!Abuse, whereby the character in question is often hospitalised after a breakdown.
Lore: The Written Word that spawned the Cannon Characters in question. The Fan Domain has their own form of the Lore.
Non-Entities: An extremely rare occurrence, where a character is neither Fannon or Cannon, and therefore is said to 'not truly exist within Fiction'.
Fannonised: Fictional Characters are graded on how much they have been fannonised, or exposed to denizens of the Fan Domain.
Teddy Lupin was exhausted. "I can't find anyone." He sounded desperate.
"We need someone who won't be glomped." Juliet said.
"That's it! I know! But every file I've read, everyone is too closely associated to a Cannon of some description."
"Well, we all know what happens then, right?" Wolverine put his boots up on his desk, chewing on the end of an unlit cigar.
"We do?" Teddy asked tentatively.
"We do."
"What does?" Juliet asked.
"We can't find our Cannon/Fannon buddy, someone from the Society is goin' in. And I can tell you now, there's no way in hell it's gonna be me."
"Well, I'm out." Juliet said quickly. "Those Mary Sues make me break out in hives."
Both she and Wolverine turned back to the only other person in the room.
Teddy felt like a deer caught in the headlights. "But – but-" He stuttered.
"Get out there, and do a nationwide search for our Non-Entity. And try to get along with 'em too, 'cause you'll be working together for a while to come if this works."
Meanwhile… Once upon a time…
Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there were two children whose lives met with misfortune. They were a brother and sister by the names of Hansel and Gretel, and they lived far away in the scary woods with their father and wicked stepmother.
One day, while out for a walk, the wicked stepmother abandoned them in the woods, hoping they would never return, even though a bullet to the head would have been more efficient, not to mention requiring less effort.
Thankfully clever Hansel had lay down a trail of breadcrumbs as the wicked stepmother lead them deeper and deeper into the forest, so they could find their way back.
But unfortunately, cleaver Hansel was not clever enough to realise that Robin Hood also lived in these woods, and by the time he and his sister wanted to make their way back to their father's house, all the Merry Men had gathered up the food they had scattered, leaving them absolutely and totally lost.
"You idiot. You couldn't have used spray-paint or something, could you?"
"Gretel, you know as well as I that the wicked stepmother had confiscated my spray-paint. Oh, what were the two poor children to do?"
"And stop talking like that, you moron."
"You know I narrate when I get nervous."
"Give me that." Gretel peered into the basket Hansel was holding. "Great. You got us lost and also used up all our lunch. I swear, if we're stuck out here for too long, I'm going to eat you."
"Yeah, yeah. What do you think we should do now then, smarty?"
Gretel sighed in a long-suffering way, and wrinkled her cute little nose. From her cute little bag, she pulled out her cute little global positioning sytem.
"Wow!" Hansel exclaimed. "How did you know to bring that?"
"Dear brother, how many decades have we been doing this fairy tale now?" Gretel looked down at the screen. "Ooh! There's a house not far from here!"
"Dear sister, there is a ninety eight percent chance that any house in the middle of the woods is owned by a wicked witch that will want to eat us. There's a one-point-five possibility that it will be owned by ogres that will want to eat us, and the last point-oh-five is likely to be seven dwarfs."
"That will eat us?"
"Even worse."
"What's worse than being eaten alive?"
Hansel shivered. "They'll… sing to us. Songs about how happy they are to go to work."
"Good golly, how terrible!"
And so the brother and sister by the names of Hansel and Gretel continued gaily down the path through the deepest and darkest part of the Forest of Clichés.
"Hey, you! Stop narrating!"
Gretel gasped as they came upon the house in the clearing. "Oh, brother! It is a cottage of gingerbread!"
Hansel's stomach grumbled. "I know it is horribly impolite to chew on someone's downpipes, but I am so terribly hungry."
As the children approached the gingerbread cottage, Gretel stopped. "Do you hear voices, Hansel?"
"I think I do, Gretel. Shall we investigate?"
"Of course. Since when has spying on other people's business ever got someone into trouble?"
"-And then I grabbed him by the tail."
"The tail! Oh, Millicent, you are such a character!"
Hansel and Gretel crept up to the rose bushes and peered through the spines. Some sort of garden party was taking place the other side of the hedges, and the children could she an old crone wrapped up in a black cloak, a kindly woman that looked like somebody's grandmother, and a younger, shorter person with stringy yellow hair and a rather squashed and puglike nose.
"Well, you'll never guess what I did last night." The diminutive woman with the yellow hair said, taking a sausage roll that looked awfully like a finger wrapped up in pastry.
"Or should it be who you did?" The old crone cackled out.
"Oh, Beatrice, really." The grandmotherly-like woman scolded.
"Don't look at me like that! You didn't see him!"
"Ladies, please. No one likes a cranky wicked witch."
"Oh dear, Hansel. I think we best go."
"It would be best. But I have already started on the mailbox!"
"Oh, Hansel."
And suddenly the teaparty was deserted.
"Oh dear me. Look who we have here." It was the old crone, bending over to see into their hiding place.
"How darling!" The grandmotherly-like woman exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Aren't they delicious? Positively good enough to eat!"
"Darling, you really need to move away from the Forest."
"Millicent, you simply must start watching your waistline. All this junk food will go straight to your hips." The yellow-haired woman said. The crone and the grandmotherly-like woman simply smiled.
"Who would like to stay for dinner? My cooking is to die for."
"Run, Hansel, run!"
"I'm running, I'm running!"
"Halt! You are surrounded by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters! Stand down immediately!"
"Oh, sweet Mary Poppins!" The crone cried out.
"Scarper!" The grandmotherly-like woman shouted.
"Do not move or force will be used to restrain you!"
"You've got to be joking." Goldie Locks whispered, dropping her cup of tea. Now, really, this was getting too much. Here she was, trying to spend a nice afternoon with two old friends and in come the police! Story of my life… "Beatrice, have you been selling illegal spells again?"
"What? Me? Of course not!"
"Okay." Goldie said. "Just checking."
And she turned and ran, leaving Beatrice and Millicent to the mercy of the Royal Society's goons. She was almost to the edge of the Forest of Clichés when someone grabbed her around the middle, practically hoisting her off her feet. "Oi! Put me down, you big ape!"
Donkey Kong just scratched his head and dropped her none-too-softly on the ground.
Goldie landed in a heap, her shirt bearing the slogan I'm Just Here to Make Up Numbers over her face. Almost fearfully she pulled the cloth back down, dreading what she would see.
Standing around her were the toughest-looking Fictional Characters that she had ever seen. She gulped.
A young man with a blue tint to his fringe was the first to speak. "Goldie Locks? Come with me if you want to live."
Goldie Locks sipped her coffee as Teddy Lupin lead the way through the crowd of people flocking around the doors of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fictional Characters. The young wizard explained to Goldie that recently more and more cannon characters had been seeking Society protection from Fandom Abuse, but as the Sues got cleverer, the Society had trouble keeping up.
Fandom Abuse came in many kinds but there were two most common. The first was I'm-completely-obsessed-with-you-let-me-have-your-babies abuse, and then there was I-hate-you-with-the-fiery-passion-of-a-thousand-suns-I-hope-you-spend-an-eternity-in-hell-you-stupid-skank-and/or-dick. Either way the pendulum swung, the fictional character in question was often traumatised for life.
There were many famous faces that Goldie recognised straight away, and others that she didn't. In fact, almost all the fictional characters she saw wearing the Royal Society uniform were people she could hardly recognise. They were the type you had to squint at for a moment or two before going I remember you…!
Teddy saw her watching. "The Royal Society tries to employ characters that have really no appealing traits about them and are therefore are less fannonised. See, over there? There's the Cheese Guy from series seven of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, that's the Nameless Evil Nazi that was killed off in the first Indiana Jones movie, and over there's Prop Alien Character #2 from the Cantina scene in Star Wars."
"That's why you're here." He continued. "You're a complete Non-Entity."
"I was very lucky to get a place." Teddy said. "Since my parents are so famous, even though I didn't even have one lousy line to say in the Lore, that was enough to get the Fan Domain excited." His grimace held the weight of experience. "I didn't even get to do a walk-on. It was just everyone else standing around talking about me."
Goldie gave a low whistle. "Must be tough."
"You have no idea."
Teddy held open the door for her and she walked inside, feeling uneasy. Once in the reception area she noticed a group of characters huddled together in the corner and pointed at them. "Who are they?" She asked, not liking how they looked, all wrapped up in black cloaks and jackets, with crossbows secured to their backs and swords by their sides.
"They're the Errors." Her guide replied.
"Don't you mean Aurors?"
"Don't be daft. We haven't needed Aurors since Lord Voldemort came seeking Society protection from Fandom Abuse." Teddy scoffed. "No, Errors. Or Error Tactical Response One, if you prefer. They hunt the Miscasts. You see, there are some Errors that are mostly benign, such as yourself."
"Such as." Goldie stuffed a silver chain in her pocket that she had slipped off some woman's wrist.
"However, there are the more dangerous Errors that form packs like wild animals and have mutated greatly past their original form. They can't be allowed into Fiction City, or-"
"Oh, oh, let me guess, let me guess. Death and destruction to all?"
"How did you know?"
"It always is." She replied. "So, what do you want me for?"
"Someone else wants to explain the specifics of the case to you."
"The Big Boss, huzzah." Goldie said, eyebrows raised. The fictional characters she was seeing weren't dazzling her much anymore, the many bright and different colours of the fandoms having mixed together to form an unappetising shade of brown.
The two of them continued to walk down the long, steel hall. The Error craned her head this way and that, trying to get some sort of sense of direction, but the structure had more twists and turns than a rabbit warren. She could see a door on her left marked James Bond (Re)Training Centre and another just next to it proclaiming Doctors' Research, which she expected to be a library of sorts, but was instead a whole room dedicated to, you guessed it, the many and varying research projects of all the regenerations of Doctor Who.
"Gentlemen." Teddy said, sticking his head around the door. "How are we going?"
"Terrible." A man with curly hair and a frightful, psychodelic fit-inducing coat replied angrily. "The Sueimatic is just not tracking properly, no matter what I do."
"If I've told you before, I've told you a thousand times. Possibly more." A silvery haired man in a frock coat stroked his chin. "You must reverse the polarity of the neutron flow."
"How many times, that is not the cure-all for every problem in the Universe!"
"Certainly not any of his."
"I wonder if he's tried?"
"Prune juice works well."
"I don't think any one of me needed to know that!"
"Don't get snappy with me, you young scamp. I never would have made it to nine hundred years if I never knew my stuff."
"You didn't, you senile old fool. He did."
"Hi."
"He's me. So therefore I did."
"Now, everyone. Just take a deep breath. Anyone for a jelly baby?"
"Oh, for Omega's sake, would you stop with the jelly babies already?"
"This is what you, me, whatever, can do with those lollies!"
"This is confusing and making my head hurt." Goldie rubbed her temples. Teddy took her by the elbow and led her away just as one Doctor in a floppy hat started using his scarf in a very inappropriate way to throttle another Doctor wearing a cricket uniform with a lettuce leaf pinned on the collar as a third Doctor looking relatively normal in a scuffed leather jacket offered a bag of sweets to another Doctor in a pinstriped suit who sat back to watch as two other Doctors started sword-fighting with their Sonic Screwdrivers, the little devices sounding an awful lot like light sabres.
"Most of our Anti-Sue devices are products of their workshop. Brilliant men. Geniuses." Teddy said. "They're all completely bonkers, though."
"Kind of like Albus Dumbledore?" Goldie asked slyly.
He sighed. "Dumbledore used to be our prime agent. Sort of a geriatric 007. But he just hasn't been the same since he came out..."
To be continued…