Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(36)
She shook her head. “In that case, congratulations, because you’re more like Jason Tous than you think you—”
Goddamn it, the doorbell’s ringing.
“—are.”
“Be there in a sec!” I yell. The response is a wordless shriek of fear, like a time-traveling Puritan who just saw her first car.
I click Post, then trudge to the door and open it to find Avery on the stoop, looking petrified, clutching four dresses on hangers underneath clear dry-cleaner cellophane and an industrial-sized makeup bag. She seems taller. It takes a second before I realize it’s because she’s not forced into crone position by a Jansport containing four math textbooks and the entire Western canon.
“I’m freaking out,” she says in the measured tone of someone trying to stop freaking out. She walks past me inside, throws the dresses and makeup on the sofa, then sprawls out on her back on the floor.
“Fuck,” she says. “Fuck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck.”
“Okay, calm down.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” she says in a monotone, staring blankly at the ceiling. “I’m overthinking it even though I know that’s just making it worse.”
“Dude, it’s just a dance.”
“I watched some YouTube tutorials on how to do a smoky eye, and now I look like a raccoon.”
“Noooo! You look like Margot Tenenbaum!” I am an unconvincing liar.
She props herself up on her elbows and glares at me. “Don’t undermine my intelligence.”
“Okay, you’re right, sorry. You look like a raccoon. A pretty raccoon.”
Avery gets up and jokingly starts fake-going through the garbage, making raccoon noises, laughing. I double over, cracking up.
“Hang on a second. Dawn has makeup remover somewhere.” I retreat to the bathroom and rummage around in the medicine cabinet until I find it.
Two barely defrosted shots of Dawn’s freezer Svedka and an hour on Pinterest studying tutorials with names like “daytime smoky eye” and “**prom hair**” later, we still haven’t managed to steer Avery’s makeup away from **dumpster-diving varmint***~.
“I need more of those pads!” she moans despondently, meaning the eye makeup–remover pads of Dawn’s that we’ve been burning through. On my way to the bathroom to grab some more, I glance into my room, where the door is ajar, and see that the group chat is already on fire.
DavidaTheDeadly: so, the OC love triangle emerges . . . still think you could have made gidbot p. interesting from a character angle but whatev
WillianShipper2000: agree!!!!
DavidaTheDeadly: though it is nice to see that a (half-)Ordinaria can think for herself.
xLoupxGaroux: Are you kidding me with this? Two words: Mary. Sue.
DavidaTheDeadly: gahhhhh. give it another installment at least!
xLoupxGaroux: Um, sweetie? 1) Half-breed. 2) High morals/ideals and terribly judgmental of others. 3) Looks fiercer than anybody else in eveningwear without trying. 4) Captivates main male protagonist without doing anything to earn it, really. Either our girl Scarface has been reading too much Ayn Rand (translation: any Ayn Rand) or this is a clear-cut Mary Sue issue.
Scarface: WAY HARSH, TAI. BTW: if you are 14 and read The Fountainhead you don’t even notice the politics, it’s really just a romance novel. Kind of a good one actually.
xLoupxGaroux: I’m gonna pretend you never said that. In fact, can you wipe my brain?
“Scar, where are you?!” Avery yells from the living room.
“Sorry! Give me just a sec!”
WillianShipper2000: who is ayn rand even
WillianShipper2000: is she the one who has that advice column
xLoupxGaroux: Scar, I’m serious. Please brush up on the definition of MARY SUE on the “About Us/Rules” page and do a close read. I don’t want to establish a pattern of lenience with this.
Scarface: dude . . . Do you really think she’s a Mary Sue?
xLoupxGaroux: She’s just too perfect. I want to see her be a real person. Not some idealistic fake paragon of virtue that is clearly a standin to make up for your terror of potentially having fun at a party.
Scarface: WTF?
xLoupxGaroux: Whole lot easier staying in and writing yourself brave instead of going out and BEING brave, is all I’m saying.
Scarface: What even are you
Scarface: OK, I guess that’s valid.
WillianShipper2000: ok w8 bump to above question about Ayn Rand tho u guys.
xLoupxGaroux: Jesus. No, that’s Ann Landers. Google it.
WillianShipper2000: No bc everything you tell me to Google is #BORING #OLD #PERSON #STUFF
xLoupxGaroux: If I have to know what “on fleek” means, you have to know some boring old person stuff.
Their banter lets me exit quietly and gracefully from the chat, still smarting. Nauseated, I click on About Us in the upper left-hand corner and open the Mary Sue litmus test. It reads:
Hey, everybody! Everyone’s encouraged to take risks in their fanfics, and for the most part, aside from hateful content or target harassment of anybody else on the board, anything goes. But it would be supercool to leave the Mary Sue stories—self-insertion into the Lycanthrope universe, based on the writer’s wish fulfillment—at the door! Don’t know if your original character is a Mary Sue? That’s cool! Find out now.