You would think that with a full-time job, chronic arm pain, an apartment that refused to clean itself, holiday insanity from hell, unrealistic expectations at work, and a cold that threatened to take me out of the game, my creativity demons would leave me alone.

Well, no. That and the constant threat of disembowelment and literary criticism did.

So when I saw them all lined up on the shelf above my computer screen in perfect formation, glaring down at me like a pissed-off chorus line, I knew I was in for a bad morning. These weren't just ordinary creativity demons, either. They were the ones whose stories usually stayed in my head. The ones dreamed up on long car trips when the imagination refused to supply anything worthy of writing. The ones that made readers twitch more than any other type of character.

My entire lineup of unwritten Mary Sues had banded together.

Shit.

I countered their looks with my best PMS-induced glare. "WHAT?"

Despite their brave front, they all flinched. The only one who didn't was the one who looked like Linda Fiorentino, and that was only because I'd toned Lydia Ross down to the point of bearability. Of the assembled group, she was the one least likely to get the brunt of my wrath.

She rolled her eyes at the rest of them. "The Cretin Brigade here wanted to know why you haven't written them in anything yet."

Olivia O'Connor and Sara Blackstar immediately rounded on her. "Cretin Brigade??" Madison and Maia, the only two with wings and claws, brandished said claws threateningly.

Lydia was completely unfazed. "Hey, you all railroaded me into this because I used to be one of you. I can call you whatever I want."

I stared at the complement of mostly attractive faces that glared down at me in disbelief. "You HAVE to ask, after all the Mary Sue hatred on the Net? After the plethora of Litmus Tests I've exposed you to? After the countless MSTings and parodies? Do I look like a masochist who wants to be flamed out of the fanfic community?"

Dr. Shelley Thompson spoke up next - hoping that since she was based on an existing canon character, she'd be spared. But becoming an Immortal, teaching biology at UC Sunnydale and teaming up with the Scooby Gang had killed any chance of that happening. "I thought you wrote fanfic for your own enjoyment."

Okay, she had a point. "True, but I've got to have standards. You guys are fine for when I'm entertaining myself, but there's no point on unleashing you on the unsuspecting public."

"You said it yourself - a good writer can overcome the stigma of Mary Sue characteristics," Olivia pointed out.

"One, I'm not that good. Two, it's difficult for even the best of writers to make people like a Mary Sue - especially since said character tends to dominate the story and push the characters people read it for to the sidelines. Three, what are you doing here? I thought I pacified you in '12 Months of Zingers!'"

"I was bored. And it's not like you've been inspired to write anything else anyway."

"Well, with all of you nagging at me, none of the other fanfic ideas can get a word in edgewise!"

The Mary Sues shuffled their feet, murmuring amongst themselves for a few moments before Sara stepped up. "All right, look. If you can give us one GOOD reason not to write us - other than the 'people hate Mary Sues' stuff you've been spitting out - we'll leave you alone. But it's got to be a reason all of us can agree with."

I thought about it for a minute. And then inspiration struck.

I turned to Sara first. "Okay, here's how your character stands. You've lived a rather tumultous life, but not a boring one. Beat up a bounty hunter, became a wielder of the Witchblade, served on the crew of the Serenity for a bit, and you're the only person to successfully navigate through a wormhole and back because of said Witchblade. Not only that, you discovered your long-lost father on the other side of the wormhole, and despite your efforts to the contrary, he found out who you were anyway. And even though he couldn't leave with you, you left him something to remember your mother by and took Mom back proof he wasn't dead. Sounds pretty good to me."

Next, I turned to Olivia. "You're the Jade Ranger in the Zeo era, pretty damned good at what you do, have known Billy for years and have Jason wrapped around your little finger. You've got a loving and fairly entertaining family, helped Billy get back in touch with his Ninja powers, went along with him and Jason when Jase needed to prove to the Triforian council he was worthy of the Gold Ranger powers and went on a cross-country road trip to expose a corporation as a front for Zedd's activities and picked up Trini and Zack along the way and match-made Billy and Trini again."

Shelley was the next one. "Okay, it started out sucky - you woke up from your first death alone on a medical bed in a lab in Thailand. But you got bailed out by another Immortal who snuck you out of there, got you trained and introduced you to Amanda and Methos -"

"Who promptly dubbed me 'Peach Fuzz,'" Shelley snapped. "Took forever to grow my hair back."

"- and then you put together a new identity, and got another doctorate teaching biology at UC Sunnydale, befriended Willow and found out about the Slayer, started getting interested in Giles, and despite your widower's discovery that you were still alive weathered the insanity pretty well - even made him realize there were some bizarre creatures on Earth HE hadn't seen."

"What's your point?" Shelley asked.

"Just this - right now you're in pretty good standing, on top of your own little worlds. But when introduced to the public, you're gonna be under the scrutiny of Mary Sue haters. Olivia, you pretty much dominated the entire story when I tried to write you, and people are going to complain that this isn't the Olivia O'Connor Show. Shelley, your character actually died in canon and had to STAY dead for the leads to get together. Having you come back to life and confuse that pairing will send Meg/Alan shippers after me in droves - and hooking up with Giles doesn't help EITHER."

Finally, I rounded on the last and most recent one. "Sara, you haven't dominated the story - but let's think about this. You've inserted yourself in the modified universe created by another fic author who I know and respect. Forget the Witchblade, forget the resemblance, forget the Firefly connection and the bounty hunter crap - having you find your father kind of defeats the purpose of the major conflict of the stories. He's not supposed to find long-lost relatives. The rescue mission sent after him ultimately decided not to bother even sending down a search party. Your father will never see home or family again, and he's not supposed to. It kills the major conflict, something that a lot of readers are going to notice. I respect Granamyr's writing FAR too much to pull something like that."

The truth was starting to dawn on them as I barreled on. "Point is, once I get you down on paper, you'll go from being the center of your own little universe to pariahs of the fanfic universe. You'll be parodied, mocked, maybe even go down in MiSTing history with the worst of them." I paused before going in for the kill. "Do you REALLY want to be associated with the likes of John Tyler? Marrissa Picard? Or, even worse, something spawned from the likes of David Gonterman?"

The group hesitated for a second or two, letting the awful truth set in. Then, as one, they dropped their defiant poses, shuffling off in all directions.

"Oh, it's almost 3, I've got a date..."

"I really need to look into those repairs."

*cough* "Um, I think I'm coming down with a cold... yeah, an Immortal cold, right..."

"Why did we do this again?"

Lydia was the last one left. She shook her head, tucking her white streak of hair behind her ear. (She was only allowed to keep it so that she could be identified from several stories above.) "I told them, but did they listen? No..." Her rant faded as she did, leaving me blessedly alone.

I sighed and went in search of cold medication, but as I was opening the medicine cabinet something occurred to me: I hadn't been under the influence of any kind of medication during this encounter. I hadn't even taken any ibuprofen for my shoulder.

"Oh, God," I muttered as I reached for the decongestant. "I really AM getting sick."