Epilogue to Flames of Paradise

I promised when I started the story that I would share my findings. I'm afraid I don't have as much to share as I had hoped, due to a persistent lack of actual feedback. Just the same, based on what feedback I did receive, here's what it looks like.

… Actually, this won't make sense unless I start by telling you what it was I was trying to find out and let you know what would have happened if I'd finish the story.

Summary of things to come...

So, by the end of chapter 12, Esuma and Snake Eyes have just found Storm Shadow's body, and he is most definitely dead.

Thankfully, Esuma figures out Sop is a Phoenix and in addition to control over fire, he also held the power to restore life (that's the secondary power for fire). She calls upon it, but the magic is so strong that she screams in pain and her body starts breaking down. She refuses to give up, however, and the magic kicks in. It restores her first, to her body as it was meant to be before she was disguised by her parents: an adult elf, dressed in battle garments identical to the ones her mother wore. Her real body is better at handling magic and she is able to revive Storm Shadow.

The three go back to school to prepare for the monster's return and the final battle. Things are relatively peaceful for a short while, with Storm Shadow becoming more genuinely accepting due in big part to the fact Esuma still loves him, if only as a close friend, and with Snake Eyes becoming a romantic, doing all sorts of little romantic things for Esuma. The school teams progress by leaps and bounds. The trio is trying to find the Soft Master, but has no luck at all. There are regular attacks by various monsters, which is not only a distraction but also saps their energy. Through it all, Esuma disguises herself to look normal.

When the attack finally does happen, the Sorcerer has a small army of monsters. Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes call upon the ancestral magic of the Arashikage clan to assist Esuma and to prevent her from having to use too much magic. She nearly does anyway, but the battle is won and all three are alive, if a bit worse for the wear. Esuma's identity has been revealed, but she's accepted as she is. Storm Shadow is finally convinced the world can't be changed globally and chooses to remain at school to at least guide the students to the right path. Snake Eyes goes back to GI Joe and as soon as Esuma is legal, they marry.

Oh, and a relatively new addition: I was going to reveal Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes were in fact identical twins, with Snake Eyes having been magically disguised and sent away by the Soft Master, who eventually chose to kill the Hard Master not only to set Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow against each other, but also because the old man went and took Snake Eyes, who he thought was just a homeless child, back into the clan. Baby Snake Eyes was sent to an orphanage and ended up homeless by age 6 when the orphanage was burnt down by terrorists, who killed all the other orphans one after the other. Snake Eyes was thought dead too, woke up in the rubbles and fled.

He finds his way back to Japan years later by running away from dangerous criminals who want to kill him following his defending a little girl from them: he manages to stow away on a boat out of desperation, and upon being found, spends weeks as the sailors' slave until they dump him overboard. He just manages to swim to coast, which is part of the reason he was so hungry that night.

And because the devil's in the details, to be romantic, Snake Eyes would have done all the things mentioned in the song 'That's How You Know' from Disney's Enchanted.

You may have noticed that GI Joe (or even just Hawk) does not reappear. One of many things that can be noticed…

But seriously...

Flames of Paradise was basically a parody: a slow boiling frog experiment. (It is said that if you toss a frog in boiling water, it will jump out; but if you toss it in cold water and gradually increase the temperature, it will stay put and boil.) Storm Shadow, my OC Esuma and later on, Snake Eyes, all gradually exhibited more and more Mary Sue and Gary Stu traits. Their scores, at the end, would have been:

Esuma: 145

Storm Shadow: 85

Snake Eyes: 70

These are approximations, of course. I could have changed my mind before the end on some things. Just the same, those all fall well into to "Kill it dead!" category of the Litmus Test (that category starts at 50 points). By the end of chapter 12, they were at:

Esuma: 120

Storm Shadow: 63

Snake Eyes: 53

Additionally, any other GI Joe character disappeared right quick, with the exception of the Soft Master, making the story more and more about the very out of character Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes and mostly, about Esuma.

On top of that, the very genre veered more and more into fantasy and magical girl series than the slightly sci-fi military action of the GI Joe movie.

That being said, one thing I did not do is botch the writing – I'll admit I didn't do much proofreading and made very little effort to plug plot holes (I figured they would naturally multiply and widen, adding heat to the boiling water to cook that frog), but I honestly tried to make a story that was fun to read, whether or not you realized its flaws. If you didn't mind the Sues, the holes and the fact it was pure name dropping past the first couple of chapters, you had a lot of plot twists, drama and romance to enjoy. If you did realize all that, you hopefully found it fun too (at least it was to the few people who knew about this from the start).

Don't believe this was not a serious story? Alright, please consider the following (this is not a complete list by any means):

1) Esuma Yr is an anagram of Mary Sue. Beldovy Orade is an anagram of Dead Lover Boy.

2) Esuma has white hair and purple eyes. I kept saying I had a good reason for it… it's not because she's an elf (they're allowed normal colouring), it's because she's a Mary Sue.

3) Lily is the Hebrew meaning of the name Susan, making Esuma's two best friends' names variations on Mary and Sue. Lily was originally called Susannah, but it seemed too obvious.

4) Esuma is Hawk's daughter, she's a magical girl elf princess, she's gorgeous and everyone likes her, etc. etc. etc. Oh, and she has four pets… let's talk about them just a bit, or rather, their names.

5) Racno the dragonfly: Ridiculous Animal Companion Number One

6) Sop the budgie/phoenix: Second Obligatory Pet

7) Oliaf the goldfish: Oh Look, It's Another Familiar (also works as oh look! It's a fish!)

8) Falpis the ferret: Fourth and Last Pet, I Swear.

9) Storm Shadow is a Gary Stu too: he's lost any trace of being a villain (unless you count explaining he was trying to save the World by working with McCullen), he's handsome and sexy (okay, that much can be considered canon for the movie-verse), he had a truly miserable childhood; his broken heart was used to transform him into a monster in his past life, he sacrifices his feelings for Esuma's and SE's happiness, he keeps getting killed (or almost killed) by being heroic (this was summarized at the beginning of chapter 11), he makes all the crazy-bad teams at school improve very quickly, etc.

10) Snake Eyes was more tricky – he's kind of an incredible Hero in most versions of canon already. The plan was to Stu-ify him by making him incredibly handsome and a great singer, making him a romantic by getting him to express his love in all the ways mentioned in 'That's how you know' from the movie Enchanted, and making sure to give him a tragic past too (in fact I would have polished it until it was as bad as I could make it) and make him save the day whenever Storm died (or almost) trying. Most of that actually got lost due to the story ending now, just at the end of the Storm Shadow act. I did manage to make him an amazing singer, and make him taste like BBQ – I was amazed nobody reacted to that, it was a purposely tasteless reference to the comic books where SE's face was severely burnt, making him so disfigured he felt the need to keep his face hidden pretty much at all times.

11) Don't feel bad if you can't figure out how the title relates to the story: it really doesn't. I'm sure you could make something up to make it fit (flames and paradise are both concepts that can be stretched to represent a lot of things and the story involves actual fire a few times, and people that are, at various point, happy) but in actuality, it was just the cheesiest title I could come up with at the time.

I hope that helps clear up any doubt. :D

While I'm on a roll listing things, here are some things I did just to mask my scent:

1) Did not use dashes. I normally abuse them, although ironically, not nearly as much now that I've had practice with doing without them;

2) American spelling – I usually use Canadian/British;

3) Numbered sections – I usually just use line separators and don't number;

4) Snake Eyes' ASL was transcribed directly (I usually paraphrase him);

5) Storm is addicted to mocha lattes – I usually write him as a lactose intolerant very healthy eater who wouldn't touch a sugared caffeinated drink with a ten foot pole even if it didn't have dairy milk in it;

6) Flames!Tommy doesn't snark. For his battle in chapter 12, other than the few sentences at the end, he doesn't even TALK. That was almost painful… I kept having to rein myself in and rewrite his lines. I even wrote a couple of "should have said" scenes, then I got Oliaf and Lily to snark a little, just to release pressure.

And finally, things I indulged in:

1) Magic. I like magic, but GI Joe doesn't really lend itself to it… Zelda does, but I write a lot more stuff for GI Joe lately;

2) Flashbacks: especially in chapter 2 and 8. Flashbacks within flashbacks. Fun. :D

3) Drama, oh the drama. I drift into melodrama VERY easily, and usually have to control myself. Not with this story. MUWAHAHA!

So… why did I do this?

I noticed many, many stories here that were what I call name dropping. I'm far from a canon nazi, I write AU myself, but I get very irritated when the characters aren't there – even more so if they have clones named after them and are only playing supporting role to a super cool gorgeous original female character.

That's the other thing that spurred this: the Mary Sues. They're normal, I'm pretty sure most writers have written them early on (I sure have, though by what I now see as a lucky set of circumstances, very little of it was ever posted anywhere). They're that super cool character you like to identify to, but they're the only attraction to the detriment of everything else; they make the story very predictable and weaken any plot; and they're all the same as many, many others before them – there are only a few basic molds. Go read the Mary Sue litmus test - you don't even have to take it – and you'll see that all those cool things about any given Mary Sue character are actually complete clichés, and easy ones at that.

Now, name dropping and the presence of a Mary Sue (or two, or more) has absolutely zilch to do with the quality of the writing style. Some of the stories that inspired me to start this experiment are written just fine as far as form goes. That fact actually only added to my frustration: here was a bunch of promising writers, making a very normal and common mistake, and the vast majority of the feedback they were getting was that they were doing great and that their Mary Sue was uber cool and awesome. And why wouldn't they believe it when they could read other stories with the very same flaws, and see those stories get the very same ultra positive feedback?

So, I wanted to find out: how bad did the Mary Sues have to get and how remote from GI Joe did the story have to be, before it got called out? My other motivation was that it sounded like fun.

Now that you know (and knowing is half the battle! Sorry, couldn't resist), what were the findings?

Initial reviews notwithstanding, the closest Esuma got to being called out was comments on the fact her eyes and hair were unusual – they were effectively deflected by simply claiming I had a reason (I did, she was a Mary Sue). The one exception was a fan from the cartoon section who took great offense at her Sueness and who I ended up frustrating a lot by refusing to textually admit Esuma was a Mary Sue. I felt I couldn't do that and risk being quoted or… well, basically, it would have been too out of character, so I compromised by not denying it either. The absence of denial went unnoticed.

On OOC-ness, Storm got away with EVERYTHING. That's actually a bit depressing. The closest he got to being called out was the comment he wouldn't be a gym teacher because he's a ninja. It's a bit ironic because I actually disagree. It's a cover, a disguise… something ninja were indeed famous for. It's debatable whether movie Storm would have chosen this particular cover, but I don't think his being a ninja makes it impossible. The exception was the same person from the cartoon category who, at that point, I believe was just pulling her hair at all the stuff I was doing wrong. Sorry, I do hope it grew back okay.

Snake Eyes got called out once BEFORE I really kicked him into overdrive (obviously, since I only started that in chapter 11), which was actually kind of funny, especially considering he doesn't get to show much personality in the movie. Exception mentioned above stands again.

GI Joe falling by the wayside was not commented on at all, although someone did request I include Duke.

Two people commented they weren't really into magic, although one went on to say they still liked the story. On the other hand, two people removed the story from their favorites when Esuma turned out to be an elf princess.

All in all, it was fun but not very instructive. I can't even conclude magic is a deal breaker because it was still only a minority of readers who reacted negatively. On the other hand, traffic was low for chapter 12, but I don't know whether it's because people didn't want to read or because they didn't notice the updates – a lot of stories updated the same day and the following day.

For clarification… no, I don't think anyone who liked the story is stupid or has no taste. I tried hard to make it fun, despite its flaws, because the flaws I engineered were the only ones I wanted in there so as not to trump the experiment. If you enjoyed it, I'm very glad and flattered.

I also don't think anyone who writes SE/MarySue or SS/MarySue or anyone/MarySue stories is automatically a bad writer. I personally don't enjoy these stories because I've read them too often already (here and in other fandoms, it really makes no difference), and I think many of you could do better precisely because I think you're actually decent writers.

Some of you may have already guessed from the list of things I did to mask my scent or just to indulge, but I'm assuming most of you don't actually know me, so allow me to introduce myself. My usual pen name is Karama9, and I mostly write in the cartoon category for GI Joe. You can check out my stories there for proof that I'm far from perfect and that I'm not kidding when I say I have a taste for drama.

Those of you who've had interactions with me as NinjaMagik, I did my best to be honest in all my dealings with everyone, short of revealing my other pen name. For example, if you called Esuma a Mary Sue, I didn't tell you that you were wrong, even though I didn't tell you that you were right either so as not to give away the game. There is one exception that I won't note here, and in that case, I was trying to express a concern without making a big drama… if you recognize yourself and want to talk, you can PM me.

There is also the case of that reviewer from the cartoon category… in this case, I stayed away or dodged the issues that really were issues or gave my standard answers (namely that I had a good reason for Esuma's colouring… which I did, as explained above). I won't detail the rest of the exchanges here; again, the person concerned can PM me if she wants to.

I had two accomplices on this from the start who helped me a lot by brainstorming with me and tossing ideas back and forth, but I'll let them identify themselves in the reviews if they feel like it. One more person was let in on the 'secret' a few chapters in and a fourth one near the end – same thing, they can identify themselves in the reviews if they wish.

Now, I'm going to be mean and state right up front that I'm not likely to believe anyone who reacts to this by saying they knew all along. I've repeatedly invited readers to PM me if they wanted to comment on the story but, for whatever reason, didn't want to leave a review, and nobody ever contacted me to so much as ask me whether any particular part of the story was serious or to express any kind of suspicion.

My apologies to anyone who is disappointed by this ending early. I hope you enjoyed what was there and that this epilogue leaves you more amused than angry.

Should have Said's!

Poor Tommy in this story was constantly being kept in check in terms of snarking and generally being a smart ass. It seemed only fair to gather a few 'should-have-said' comments for posterity.

Chapter 6:

Scene 1: as it was

[Storm Shadow] felt the presence just in time to dive to the side and dodge the tip of a broom handle that had been headed straight at the base of his neck and would have knocked him out instantly. He turned to face his opponent and opened his mouth to try and talk to him, but Snake Eyes was on top of him in a second, attacking him with a viciousness he'd never seen him display before.

"Wait!"

Storm Shadow jumped backwards to avoid a swipe at his legs.

"Hold on!"

Snake Eyes tried to stab him in the gut with the handle of his broom, but Storm Shadow twisted and dodged. Snake Eyes frowned, annoyed: it was just his luck that Storm Shadow had finally learned to devote some energy to dodging when fighting.

"Look, I'm NOT here for Hawk!" Storm Shadow finished, grabbing the broom handle.

Scene 1: Storm Shadow-ified.

[Storm Shadow] felt the presence just in time to dive to the side and dodge the tip of a broom handle that had been headed straight at the base of his neck and would have knocked him out instantly He turned to face his opponent and chuckled: Snake Eyes was the attacker, but dressed as a custodian…which at least explained the broom.

"I don't suppose you want to talk this over?" he asked, jumping backwards to avoid a swipe at his legs.

Snake Eyes twitched at the bad joke regarding his vow of silence and tried to stab him in the gut with the handle of his broom, but Storm Shadow twisted and dodged. Snake Eyes frowned, annoyed: it was just his luck that Storm Shadow had finally learned to devote some energy to dodging when fighting.

"Brother, think it through…I've been here for days and they're both fine. I'm not THAT incompetent. Just very, very unlucky…that should not be a surprise, look at the brother I ended up with… why, he hasn't talked to me in his years! Won't even say 'hello' back!"

Chapter 7

Scene 2, As it is:

"Oh, come off it," Cartwell said. "She looks gorgeous tonight and you just don't want to admit you're not downright blind."

The MC started talking then, and Storm Shadow did not get a chance to answer, which he didn't mind all that much: he couldn't really think of much of a response other than telling the other two men to lay off his girlfriend, and that was of course out of the question.

Scene 2, fixed:

"Oh, come off it," Cartwell said. "She looks gorgeous tonight and you just don't want to admit you're not downright blind."

"I'm not blind, but I seem to have lost a couple of years worth of memory. You won't believe this, but up until you made that comment, I was convinced this was my first year here, and that she was still over a year away from being legally major. Knowing you wouldn't be such a pervert as to actually express this kind of physical attraction for a minor, I'm forced to revise this conviction. Do you know a good psychiatrist that may be able to help me fight this tragic amnesia?"

The MC cut off Cartwell's reply.

Chapter 11

Scene 3, as it is

From the corner of his eyes, Storm Shadow saw a flurry of people rushing away from the school and the Monster. Unnoticed by most, two figures stayed behind and joined him in front of the mechanical beast.

"A… panda?" Snake Eyes asked, eyes wide. "But… they're Chinese!"

"As if we needed further proof that the Soft Master is an imposter," Storm Shadow remarked grimly.

Scene 3, fixed

From the corner of his eyes, Storm Shadow saw a flurry of people rushing away from the school and the latest monster of the day. Unnoticed by most, two figures stayed behind and joined him in front of the mechanical beast.

"A… panda?" Snake Eyes asked, eyes wide. "But… they're Chinese!"

Storm Shadow sagged a bit.

"You go explain that to the thing, Snake Eyes. See if it'd be kind enough to blink out of existence out of sheer embarrassment. I can't believe we didn't think of trying that for all the other non-Japanese monsters we've been fighting. That bug summoning monster, for instance, or the giant moose, or…"

Of course, that's cheating, because Snake Eyes wouldn't make the comment in the first place – he wouldn't talk, for one thing, and he wouldn't react to a panda not being Japanese when nothing else they fought was, either.

Scene 3, fixed again

From the corner of his eyes, Storm Shadow saw a flurry of people rushing away from the school and the latest monster of the day. Unnoticed by most, two figures stayed behind and joined him in front of the mechanical beast.

Not taking his eyes from the beast, Snake Eyes signed to Storm Shadow that he owed him twenty dollars.

"Nuh-uh," Storm Shadow replied. "You bet the next one would be a robot; I bet it'd be an animal. We both win."

Snake Eyes rolled his eyes, but settling the bet would have to wait: what he felt was a robot and just happened to LOOK like a panda was charging an attack.

Chapter 8

This one is more of a missing scene than a fixed one.

Scene 4, As it is

[Snake Eyes] turned to Storm Shadow next and, much to his sword brother's shock, kneeled.

"What are you doing?" Storm Shadow asked, edging away as though Snake Eyes had gone insane and might do anything.

"Taking a new oath," Snake Eyes replied, keeping his eyes low. "I hereby swear loyalty to my clan Master, the rightful Heir of the Arashikage."

Scene 4, extended

[Snake Eyes] turned to Storm Shadow next and, much to his sword brother's shock, kneeled.

"What are you doing?" Storm Shadow asked, edging away as though Snake Eyes had gone insane and might do anything.

"Taking a new oath," Snake Eyes replied, keeping his eyes low. "I hereby swear loyalty to my clan Master, the rightful Heir of the Arashikage."

Storm Shadow's eyes widened briefly, and he smirked as he relaxed again, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Really? That's wonderful! I was just thinking I'd LOVE a fresh fruit salad right now. The supermarket on the next block has nice ones."

Snake Eyes blinked at him.

"What?" Storm Shadow continued, the smirk disappearing to be replaced by a mock pout. "Oh, so that oath of loyalty doesn't extend to preventing my starving, is that it?"

In fact, most every scene from that point on with Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes could easily include Tommy happily tormenting Snake Eyes with that oath, because as much as Storm Shadow would never actually use it to force Snake Eyes to do something significant against his will, he would just NEVER get tired of abusing it with silly requests. Of course, that's cheating again: Snake Eyes should have known better than to make that oath.