"Die Mad About It" Or, the Tumultuous Tales of a Latinx Mary Sue

"Die Mad About It"

In the 2010’s, one of the worst mistakes to make in fandom was the creation of a Mary Sue. The infamy of ‘My Immortal’ created a legacy of mockery passed down through the years as an example of how a Mary Sue can upend everything established in a specific fandom’s canon. The go-to website for Mary Sues at this time was Fanfiction.net, where an open review system allowed people to comment – be it in mindless praise or open flames – and tell the author just how awful their Mary Sue is.

Cut to 2019, The Current Year, and Mary Sues are alive and well – though not as common as they used to be. On AO3 (Archive of Our Own for the uninitiated), the Suethors and tweens of years past grew up, became young adults, graduated from university or college, got their degrees and jobs, and continued to write. Their material went from cringey Mary Sue material to slash material (gay pairings, again, for the uninitiated), of varying degrees of canon-cracking and bizarre content. A generation of Tumblr users and social media aware Millennials took up the fanfiction pen, and began to write to their heart’s content.

AO3 I’ll give one thing: it does host all manner of things, albeit it does not always respect published author’s wishes not to have fanfic done on their material (Anne Rice and Diana Gabaldon being just two examples). It was the safe space for the Fanfiction.net purges of 2012 and the Tumblr purges of 2018 (both occurred because of the incidences of child porn; for the latter, porn brought in the bulk of Tumblr’s net worth). It has a forum-style comment system, where reviewers and writers can interact with each other – to an extent.

That extent is whether or not those reviews are critical. Say you love a story, but there’s a plot point you find flips the whole story upside down. You tell the author in your kindest words why you feel disappointed at this development, and give them pointers or advice on how to make it better. Ergo, you did the thing you did to Suethors on Fanfiction.net: you reviewed.

Then, for no reason, your comment gets yanked or the whole story becomes ‘moderated reviews only’. What to do? Do you blink at the screen, wondering what happened? Do you ask the author why your review was deleted, but never get a response? Or, do you just go ‘fuck it’, and go all out, fully expecting your comment to get deleted but content it was seen anyways?

Therein lays AO3’s greatest flaw: any negative comment, be it a flame or constructive criticism, is removed. There is no Wicked Crazy, Robert the Grey, or Flame Rising on AO3 like there was on Fanfiction.net. I have heard countless times that AO3 has a higher roster of better quality stories, because the authorship is older. You want to test that theory? I did. And that’s why I took my critical reviews off site.

The initial story I’m going to review is nestled into both worlds: a slashfic and a Mary Sue story, with an author who moderates comments and complains about ‘harassment’, despite publishing an e-mail for readers to ask questions. So, how to respond to an author who ‘doesn’t mind criticism’, yet clearly cannot take even a smidgen of heat? You start an edgy blog, and you go all in.

I will start with a Tumbr-eqse palette user, artist and aspiring animator. Let’s dive in to Pistols at Dawn.

It’s no surprise that Assassin’s Creed Unity had a boatload of problems, with game-breaking glitches and a story which could have incorporated the breadth of the French Revolution yet did not. I’m not going to repeat all the criticism – they’re all available on the Internet. However, my main issue for this story is the author’s attempt to ‘fix’ the plot because ‘Ubisoft cannot do its job’. Well then, coming off of a nearly 500,000 fic where the Mary Sue wedged her way into Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood’s plot, what could possibly go wrong?

Just about everything.

From the author’s note:

Keep in mind, Ubisoft had the resources to involve so many characters at once, and since they didn’t abuse that, I’M GOING TO DO IT AND DO A BETTER JOB.Yeah, Unity sucked. A lot (AC lore is embedded in my skull so much at this point, the game only gets further disappointing the more times I play it….and I’ve had to over and over again to scrap something out of its mishandled plot and characters). Like it almost destroyed the company, but you know what, I’ll give Arno a fighting chance and see if we can actually make a decent character out of him. The stage is set, and all that’s left is to write it out, and with the help of my equally-story-starving-cowriters, we’re going to make it happen for this last installment of Elysia’s story.Also note, a lot of politics, a lot of viewpoints and the like are going to be implemented here, and it’s……you know, its funny how history repeats itself, especially with what’s happening right now in the world.

Given the author is Latina (or Latinx, since we can't have the gender binary), something tells me the Yellow Vest Movement or the Identitarian movement currently gaining in France would tickle her Jimmies something fierce. Let alone the growing support for Marine and Marion Marechal Le Pen. Those aspects of French culture and resistance are too offensive. 

Keep this in mind with the 'Lore down pat' girl. Keep this in mind when canon characters are introduced. Keep this in mind when French history comes up. Keep this in mind when Arno is 'given a fighting chance', and the 'mishandled plot' will be corrected. Air quotes will be abused constantly here. 

A ‘humans are fickle’ cliché emerges from one Shay Cormac, but you wouldn’t know it was him, because it happens to be the exact same philosophy our star Elysia shares. Entering his elder years, Shay is still in action, and Connor and Aveline are set up to go after him. Will we ever see this plot emerge, see it come to a fitting end? Probably not – because, as happened in ‘Run, Fox, Run’, Elysia takes precedence over all else. There is no point setting up a plot point that will not be solved. Not only is it a Red Herring, it’s lampshading your own story.

Connor, despite rebuilding the American Colonial Brotherhood from the ground up, apparently still has issues controlling and keeping his Brotherhood afloat. If he hopes to stop Shay with that, he’s SOL. It also calls in his own competency as a character, and whether the author, Key, wants to keep anyone competent here.

The majority of this story takes place during the French Revolution, and the current year here is 1789. Reading it, you’d think it was the Reign of Terror with all the blood flowing through the streets - ex “cobblestones smeared with crimson spoils” - rather than a few sparse riots here and there. I would like to mention this story isn’t written by one person, but three. Three people writing roughly 25,000 word chapters, and yet cannot be bothered to study French history.

Chapter 1 ends with a Tee Hee villain plot with Germain the Big Bad meeting Shay. Though both are around the same age, it was never established what Shay did in his later years. We know he sired children, and killed Charles Dorian in 1776. It is possible he disappeared to keep his own company; that aspect would largely be preferable to what we have now.

Moving on to Chapter 2.

This chapter begins with the death of Charles Dorian, and to be honest, this wasn’t written too bad. However, it reminds me of Mirror and Image’s Assassin’s Creed Unity Rewrite, a similar mega-fic which endeavours to ‘fix’ all the mistakes of the game. Here, Francois de la Serre expresses reluctance at adopting Arno, but his wife Julie convinces him it would be the best thing to do; to honour Charles’ memory. This, in of itself, is not bad. But its meaning will become increasingly irrelevant the more Elysia, aka the Sue Bitch, enters the fray.

A scene cut takes us to the Storming of the Bastille, where Arno is now in his early twenties. The Storming occurred during the morning of July 14, and the sky is described as ‘black’, presumably from smoke (or, if the authors forgot, they simply wrote the Storming at night).

Here’s where things get interesting; where the ‘Lore down pat’ comes in. Bellec, Arno’s mentor, has his name misspelled constantly as ‘Bellac’. Try saying that twenty times in a row. Personally, I keep reading it as ‘Black’, so that is what I’m going to call him from now on. 

Arno kicked the man’s hand before he could even lift it, the sword falling to the ground from the fierce blow.

This is actually hard to do, if you've ever watched self-defense videos. It is hard to do with a knife, let alone a sword. But I'll roll with it. 

The Brotherhood has many resources, and it would be a damn shame to see all my hardwork go to waste just because you didn’t grow a damn pair.”

Arno’s brows furrowed at this, a boiling pot riling up his throat at the insult alone, “I’m not a waste!"

Don’t worry, Arno. You’re not a waste...not yet, anyways. 

‘Lore Down Pat’ gets interesting by not expanding on the Bastille imprisonment or the nature of the fortress itself. Despite its history as an example of French feudalism, and the symbolism of its fall, we’re just going with the Lore Down Pat and fixing the AC Unity plot by not even discussing the event that tipped off the whole damn thing.

Oh, gotta love how Arno doesn’t know how to perform Leaps of Faith. 

He escapes, talks about Black, and goes to find his ginger girlfriend (who will play no major role in this story, because Arno is going to get a nice, fat baguette up where the sun doesn't shine). Scratch that, he has the key Black gives him to gain access to the Assassin Sanctuary. Easy peezy. 

The figure almost phased through the running bodies, and in a matter of two seconds Arno was being rammed by a shop wall and forcibly peering to the shadowed face that lifted him inches off the ground. His eyes widened, unsure why this person in particular had the same color of the Assassin medallion in her eyes- a woman???- WHAT-

“I should rip your head off of your shoulders, boy.” Her voice was a tongue he had never heard of; she spoke French…but she wasn’t French. The flesh he could make out wasn’t light-skinned, nor any color he had ever seen on a human being. A part of him convinced him he was already dead and hallucinating, but again gold coins glimmered feral from the cowl.

Ah...here we go. The introduction of Sue Bitch. This magical pony has the ‘colouring of a Gypsy’ (from the AC Brotherhood story), and can shape shift into an Animorph/werewolf thing if the Twilight kicks in. Already she’s marking her territory, showing herself better than a canon character and then some. Were this 2010 or 2012, and this was published on Fanfiction.net, rest assured, this character would be raked over so many coals Bella from Twilight would be considered a patron saint.

In terms of crossovers, there’s a degree of suspense of disbelief provided the two fandoms have mutual themes or interests. This crossover, being between Zelda and Assassin’s Creed, has less to do with the former and the latter and more to do with Elysia, the ‘Gypsy coloured’ woman with eyes considered ‘gold coins’. Better keep her away from those merchants. They might just steal them and sell ‘em!

“Please.” He snatched out the medallion, and lent it out for her to see. The woman squinted her eyes…and then they widened after her examination.

“An Assassin? You’re an Assassin?” 

“Er…why yes, I am,” he nodded after tucking it back into his pocket, giving a sly smile.

 “The woman, with her ring finger marked. Is she here? It’s important I see her….Assassin business and the like. You get it, oui?”

“Yes, yes come in,” she waved her hand inward, easily falling for his lie. He resisted smirking, and stepped inside. “You look so famished, would you like some tea, coffee? Biscuits?” “Yes, please. My name is Arno, madame. What may I call you?”

“Charlotte. Here, sit.”

I assume this takes place in the Café Théâtre. In this ‘Lore Down Pat’ fix-it fic, Arno is not the one who manages the finances and controls the café. That is left to our wonderful heroine, Elysia. Already, she is called ‘My Lady’ by good ole Charlotte, and treated with reverence as if she was a Windsor.

I also don’t need to mention how Arno and Charlotte casually say they’re Assassins, when one of the main tenants of the Creed is ‘never be seen’, and most of all, don’t go around telling people you’re Assassins. Never go full retard.

“My lady! An Assassin is here to see you!” He heard her.

“I’m not seeing any of the squad today-“

Here comes the Sweetie Squad! Don’t you love it how a character from Zelda, a world with its own culture, and its own way of speaking, as a Mary Sue who speaks as if she was a modern day Twitter user who thinks she’s sassier than she really is? Man, characterization down pat, yo.

“No,” she answered promptly. Was she going to be like this with every reply?“Can you help me get to Versailles?”

 "No.” He frowned at this, and he sighed.
"Why Versailles? At a time like this?” Charlotte chimed in, catching Arno’s gaze.“My sister is there, and I don’t know if she’s alone…” Or if she’s a Templar. “I just want to know if she’s safe.”

“That’s….that’s awful. Surely we can acquire some sort of carriage, or horse-““The answer is no,” the unnamed figure spat out, making Arno jitter in his seat once.

He fiddled with the sleeves of his blouse, and sighed, “……Of course. I understand.” Charlotte scowled, but remained silent as she stared dismayed at her partner’s back.“Do you have anything else to ask?” she cut in. A fuck ton…but with your attitude… “If not, I suggest you leave, I have other matters to attend to.”

Sorry, Arno, but in this Lore Down Pat story, you aren’t going to be the main character. You aren’t going to have your love interest be a woman, and you are going to come second to this majestic little pony who, unlike Secretariat, won’t be made into glue once her time is done.

In true Mary Sue fashion, Elysia dominates and controls canon characters and pushes her way into the plot. Why? Because it’s ‘her story’, that’s what. It has less to do with a crossover and interactions with clashing cultures and history than it does with Miss Sue Bitch. And I will say that because, as Arno himself notes, this woman is an absolute boulder who has as much charisma as sidewalk covered in chalk under heavy rains. This happened in the near 500,000 fic with AC Brotherhood: Elysia, a woman who ‘doesn’t like to accept help’, goes from sass to snark to ‘Lol, I dunno’ in the span of a minute, and interferes with everything around her because it is her story, not anyone else’s.

Lore Down Pat will turn Arno, a character who didn’t get enough attention, into yet another gay boy with no personality and no drive despite the author insisting she’s going to ‘give him a chance’. Well, Les, it sure doesn’t look like it and this is the second chapter. Your Mary Sue should not usurp or override the plot to make it all about her. Yet this happens and will happen until this clusterfuck is over.

What happens when you get an SJW who missed the era of flamers reaming out Mary Sues posting a massive Sue fic on a website that deletes any critical comments? You get a rollercoaster ride of out-of-place plots, out-of-place language, and OOCness which would make any normal person cringe. Alas, on AO3, any comment you don’t like gets yanked.

So we’ll see if ‘I am totally fine with criticism’ gets taken into account. Art imitates life, and this train wreck is just beginning. There's only room for one fox, sure. But I'm not going to be the one made into someone's fur coat.  

via GIPHY