literature

It's Not Easy Being Sue

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PenThatDoesNotWrite's avatar
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Isadora Sue woke up to another dismal grey morning. It had rained every single day for the past month, and only her spirits were gloomier than the weather.

She looked in the mirror, and despite the beauty of her reflection, Isadora thought to herself how plain she looked. For some strange reason far beyond her control, Isadora was the only one who found Isadora ugly. She tried to see if a smile would help, but she couldn't manage one.

'Why don't you love yourself?' the mirror asked her, because Isadora was strange and liked talking to herself.

'Because I'm not worth loving,' she said.

'Why does everyone else love you then?' the mirror asked back.

It waited for her to answer, but Isadora had no reply. The mirror then asked a few more mysterious yet meaningless questions like 'Who are you?' and 'What are you?' and 'Why are you talking to your mirror?', but Isadora couldn't answer any of those either. In time she gave up, and got ready to go to school.

Isadora was one of the most popular girls in her grade, and the envy of all the girls she knew. She had a beautiful name, gorgeous looks, natural purple eye shadow and a certain air that made everyone around her feel as though they had no choice but to love her forever. She was also an ancient pure blood vampire or something, but that's not important because no one knows that yet. Except me, because I'm the writer.

But despite all the blessings Isadora had received in her life, she was still unhappy.

For one thing, the name everyone thought was beautiful was actually her middle name. Her first name was far more common, and she was so ashamed of it that she never revealed to anyone that it wasn't Isadora. The only reason I know the truth is because I'm the writer.

Then there was the fact that she didn't think that she was beautiful. This had nothing to do with her: it was actually to play on the self-esteem issues of young girls who'd like the kind of story she was in. The idea was that self-conscious teenagers were shown a beautiful girl who, like them, didn't think she was beautiful, so that they can convince themselves that they were beautiful all along as well. And most of them were, of course, only their beauty could not be gauged by outer appearances or the opinions of hormone-drunk teenage boys, because those have proven to be unreliable tests. But the writer who was writing this before I took over didn't know that, so Isadora went on thinking she was ugly.

She was slim enough to be anorexic, because she was anorexic. 

On top of that her natural purple eye shadow, which looked like tastefully applied makeup, was actually caused by a genetic defect that gave her two pairs of eyelashes. As pretty as this looked, it also meant she had to regularly visit the doctors because of the awful itching and tearing all the little hairs falling into her eyes caused. It drove her out of her mind.

And finally, there was the people who loved her. She didn't care about them, except for her love interest, but we'll get to him later. As I was saying, she didn't care about any of the people who loved her, and yet they still seemed to think she was perfect. As she walked into a corridor all the heads would turn, people would carry her things for her, help her with schoolwork without her asking, generally compliment her and do the kind of nice things for her that nice people do for the people they like.

And she still didn't care about any of them, not for a second. All she cared about was herself, and her love interest. She occasionally was mildly conscious of other attractive male people, but that was about it. She was mentally incapable of having any sort of regard for other people, again except for her love interest, and if that didn't make her a sociopath then it at least made her ugly. On the inside, which is what counts.

And then of course there was the head case she was in love infatuated with. He was really handsome and everything, but that didn't change the fact that he was both unstable and dangerous, not to mention creepy. They were gradually getting closer, or whatever you call it when two personality-less individuals smell each other a lot, and as they got to know each other better Isadora started to see warning signs about their relationship. For one thing, when they'd first met, he'd glared at her like he hated her. He made unnatural approaches towards her, was controlling and demanding, regularly disrespected her when he spoke and was prone to violent mood swings. Isadora had known this side of him for a while, but none of it had bothered her. Now though, she was getting alarmed. She looked at him and saw what he was, uglier on the inside perhaps than even she was, and she still couldn't tear herself away from him. Not because she still loved him or something, but because every time she tried to get away a strange force pushed her towards him, as though the universe was conspiring against her own decisions. 

This became almost too much for Isadora to handle on the day she found out her love interest had watched her while she was sleeping, before they'd even started dating. He'd said it as though it was a compliment to her that he had, and at that moment she realized exactly how dangerous he was. Not because he was a vampire (as you must have guessed), but because he clearly had no respect for her personal space and was such a disturbed individual that he thought having a stalker was a good thing.

She ought to have pushed away then. She wanted to, so badly. But she couldn't. Instead she made a fuss about him hearing her sleep-talking, which is the least upsetting thing about the situation. She spent the day in fear, showing almost no sign of emotion, waiting for the moment when he was out of her sight so she could finally breathe normally again. She started crying uncontrollably as soon as he did.

Isadora was falling apart. She suddenly realized that her life was not her own, and that she wasn't the main character in her own story. She was merely a mirror, a reflection of the desires of people she did not know and would never meet, and her own life was nothing beyond that. She was a robot in a manufacturing line, bound to act as she was programmed until the fantasies of her maker were realized. Her creator did not care for her fulfilment. Isadora was given a desirable life, but not a happy one.

She could have gone her entire life like this. Oblivious to the trappings of her existence and the twisted universe she lived in. But something had change recently (the writer, to be exact), and she'd seen her world for what it was. She also saw herself for what she was, and realized she was the same as the world she lived in. Sick, cruel and empty. She had no hand in her own fate, no part in the way people treated her, no way to be who she wanted to be, and was doomed instead to be a person other people wanted to be. If only they knew how painful it was to be her.

Isadora broke down completely the next day, when she was being guided to Biology class, where her sociopath love interest would be. Two very kind and helpful girls were leading her there, offering to help her in whatever whey they could, and all she could think was 'stop annoying me, you peasants.' Which was, of course, a horrible thing to think about people who are helping you. Isadora knew she had to be grateful, or at least act like she was grateful, but she could do neither, and she hated herself for it. She was also extremely hungry from skipping lunch, and was starting to feel dizzy. A soppy compliment about how close she was getting to her love interest was the last straw for her.

Isadora fell to her knees, only just managing to break her fall with her arms. Her forehead was sweating, her hands were shaking; she wanted to throw up but there was nothing to throw up. She'd never felt worse in her life.

'Hey Dora, what's wrong?'

Dora didn't care to remember what this girl's name was, and she was annoyed by her concern. What is wrong with me? she thought.

'Why do you care about me?!' Dora yelled, hating everything. 'I don't care about you. I don't care about any of you!'

The two girls looked blank for a second. Then they both laughed.

'Holy crow Dora,' said the one from Spanish class, 'you're like, so hilar, girl.'

'WHY ARE YOU TALKING LIKE THAT?!' Dora screamed. She can't know this, but it's because the previous writer thinks that that's how teenagers talk. 'I HATE YOU BOTH, DON'T YOU GET IT? I'M WORTHLESS! LEAVE ME ALONE!'

'Hey Dora, you don't look so good,' said one of the girls, completely ignoring her outburst. 'We better get you to the nurse's office.'

'NO!' screamed Dora, trying to escape. 'GET AWAY FROM ME!' She attempted to run away, but her legs gave way and she slammed into the floor. 





Hours later, after a visit to the nurse's office and a cheeseburger, Isadora found herself throwing up in the toilet. That was the worst day of her life, because it had been the day she realized how awful her life truly was. And yet somehow she was glad. Her perception had finally changed, if only a little, and she wondered if she could begin her life anew.

Isadora walked shakily over to the mirror and looked at her reflection. She understandably didn't look very good. Her hair was disheveled, there was an unsightly bandage on her forehead, her eyes were drawn and her skin was an unhealthy shade of 'I just threw up'. And yet, for the first time in her life, Isadora saw that she really was quite beautiful. And then she finally understood that her looks did not matter.

The mirror spoke to her again. 

'Why does everyone love you?' the mirror asked.

'Because they don't know me,' she answered.

'Who are you?'

'I am Mary.'

'And what are you?'

Tears began to fall down Isadora's cheeks as she finally managed a smile.

'Ugly.'

This is more of an experiment with bad characterization than anything else. Everyone knows Mary Sues are terrible characters, but what if one switched hands with a writer who treated her like an actual human? That's what I wanted to see.

By the way this excerpt is a work of fiction that is probably not based on any other works of fiction, living or dead. Any resemblance to a popular young adult fantasy romance novel is probably just your imagination. Probably.

This my first stab at writing on deviantART, so I really hope you guys like it.
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ITAFTRS's avatar
I quite like it. Your way of writing is really interesting, I like the way you refer to the writer so often, for instance those "because I'm the writer" parts. I want to see more literature from you!