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Jen sat in a chair at the end of the row in the lecture hall,
looking around impatiently and glancing at her watch irritably. "She's
late," she kept grumbling between telling several gorgeous woman that the seat
next to her was taken. Finally a short round woman with red hair and green
eyes and a black sweat shirt that reads 'Four out of five voices in my head
say 'Eat the chocolate' comes in and flops into the chair that her friend has
so diligently been protecting. Without so much as saying 'Hi' Jens turns on
her and starts ranting, "You're late. How could you leave me sitting in
here with these people?"
Olivia looks nonplussed and thoroughly unsympathetic as she
glances around the hall. With the exception of these two, everyone here
is thin, tall, beautiful, in short perfect. "What, did somebody say
something to set you off again?" She asked, leaning back in her chair,
propping her feet on the back of the seat in front of her and leaning her head
back, looking as if she is getting ready for a nap.
"Are you kidding? Not in this crowd. Everybody has to like
them, so of course you can't get mad at them. I just don't like being the sore
thumb in the bunch. You know the only one that's not perfect."
Olivia turns her head slightly, and glares at Jen through
one half closed eye. "Glad to know that you feel better not to be the only
ogre in the room."
Jen gave Olivia a crooked smile and said, "You know what
they say, if you want to look good hang out with ugly people."
"Bitch," Olivia mumbled. "Actually, I have heard that,
that's why I hang out with you too."
"Well, now we're even. So what time is this lecture
supposed to start? I thought she was supposed to be here ten minutes ago."
"I just want to get it over with, if this wasn't a course
everyone had to do, I wouldn't even be here. God, I hate those stories," Olivia
groused with a shudder. Another glance around the room and she continued, "So,
how many of these have written at least one?"
Jen scanned the sea of classic noses and blue eyes, mostly
young women, but occasionally a man. "Oh, probably all of them. I bet that
everyone of them has a mirror on them somewhere." She looked back at her
companion to catch her quickly trying to wipe a smirk off of her face. "What?"
she demanded.
"Nothing. Just thinking about a story you wrote a while
back."
Jen's eyes flashed with irritation once more, as she
snapped, "That was not. It was my first attempt at fan fiction and I just
thought that adding a character would help the plot."
"You mean be the plot," Olivia snickered.
"Shut up. And I still don't think it qualifies as one of
those stories."
"For God's sake, she had the same name as you."
"So? Whatever, I thought you weren't gonna' talk about
that anymore. Besides, I NEVER even posted it!"
"Sorry, it just seemed like the appropriate time."
Just then a breathtakingly beautiful woman with auburn
hair, dark green eyes, dressed in a very fashionable green pantsuit, came
into the room by way of the door at the front.
"Good morning, class. I'm Professor Mary Sue and I'll be
teaching this course this semester. In the next few weeks you'll learn how to
create a flattering surrogate character, how to make that character sound
intelligent, how to write an over done romantic relationship between your
character and a canon character who you find attractive. Then we will advance
on to projecting yourself into canon characters, writing yourself as someone
of the opposite sex, slash and hetsmut surrogacies, and finally we will
explore ways to get you out of you self involved fantasy world and into real
writing. As you all know, this is a requirement. Everyone has to write at least
one Mary Sue in their writing career, this course is designed to basically get
that urge out of your system and get you over yourself. Any questions?"
Olivia, who is a bit shocked, raises her hand, and clears her
throat to get the willowy woman's attention.
"Uhm, Professor Sue? I was wondering,... well, I couldn't
help but notice... you and I have some similar traits, do you look the same to
everyone?"
"That's a very good question, I'm glad we're off to such a
promising start."
Olivia blushes, pleased to have impressed the professor. She
is rewarded by a rude punch in the ribs from her neighbor. "Suck up," Jen
snorts loudly. "Shut up." Olivia retorts.
Professor Sue fails to notice the exchange between the
friends, and continues, "No, class, my appearance and demeanor, my manner of
speech, even my sexual preference changes according to who is writing the
story. For example, at this moment I have dark red hair, emerald green eyes,
even though I haven't had a chance to show it, I have a short temper, a
cultured southern accent, I am well read and I have a weakness for wise
cracking holographic doctors, loner Changeling security chiefs, exiled
Cardassian spies, exotic looking, naive human doctors, and yellow eyed
androids. If someone else were writing this, I might not only appear
different, but I might even be a different species, or even gender and have a
very different opinion on what my type is."
Olivia is scribbling furiously in her notebook as Jen looks on
in intense amusement. When Olivia finally looks up, she see her friend's
expression. "What? We all have to do this course, I might as well try
to do it in an amusing way. Besides you wanted me to do a TSU bit, I just
thought I'd kill two birds with one stone. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to
meet Constable Odo, Doctor Bashir and Garak for lunch in the cafeteria.
After that Odo and I are going for drinks, then I have to save the station
single handedly, say a tearful goodbye to Odo, who is my lover, drop a hint or
two at Kira, and then lock Garak and Julian in the back of Garak's shop until
they admit their feelings. After that I'm off to my new assignment on the
Enterprise as Data's personal assistant. I'll call you tonight after
I'm done and tell you how it all went. 'Bye."
In a whirl of red hair dye, Olivia is gone, leaving Jen
sitting by herself, chuckling evilly and saying, "Oh this is going to be fun."