Hey everybody... Are you all getting as tired as I am of all the cliché scenes in Matrix fan fics? Are you ready to scream if you see a common mistake happen just one more time? Then join me for a fun filled romp into the twisted world of second-rate fan fiction! And try not to take it too personally if any of this hits too close to home, I only put it in here if I saw it happen at LEAST three times, so you're not the only one who made that mistake. Just remember, this is all in fun! But it wouldn't hurt if you took something away with you that improved your fan fiction.
--Byl Glinka
"I'm having the worst feeling of deja-vu..." Morpheus said to no one in particular. "There's something not right about all this."
"Like what?" Trinity asked, her eyes still glued to the monitor, keeping an eye on the happenings in the Construct.
"Well, haven't you noticed that everything that's been going on with our new recruit was kind of... I don't know... familiar?"
"No, I guess I didn't. How do you mean?"
"Well first the Agents came after him, then we contacted him, then the Agents bugged him, and not only that, but it was the same freakin' Agent that bugged Neo, then we de-bugged him and brought him into the real world... only to watch him go through the exact same complications with the unplugging procedure as Neo went through, right down to the mirror crawling up his arm." Morpheus started.
"I'm not following you." Trinity looked up at him.
"Wait, there's more. So we brought him out, repaired his muscles, gave him his first meal, and I found myself using almost the exact same speech I gave Neo when we brought him up to date on what's going on."
"Meaning..." Trinity still wasn't getting it.
"It's like everything is repeating itself. Almost word for word, action for action." Morpheus tried to clarify it. "Only with this new guy instead of Neo. And another thing, have you noticed that we're both completely out of character?"
"Oh, that... Morpheus, we're in a fan fic." Trinity explained to him. "What did you think, this was the sequel or something?"
"What's a 'fan fic'?" Morpheus was confused.
"Oh, sorry. I forgot how long ago you were pulled out of The Matrix. It's like this... when an aspiring writer is getting started, they're either not creative enough to write their own original plot yet, or they don't want to waste their good ideas on learning how to write. So they write a story based on a movie, TV show, video game, or whatever."
"I think I get it..." Morpheus answered. "So everything's been going so similarly because the author is trying to explain it to anyone who didn't see the movie?"
"Well, no." Trinity answered.
"Then it's because the author is paying homage to the movie?"
"Actually, that's not it either."
"Well what then?" Morpheus was confused.
"Usually they're just too lazy to come up with something original." Trinity explained.
"But wouldn't that turn the whole fan fic into a novelization of the movie?"
"Oh no, usually things start deviating from the movie at either the Kung-Fu training or The Jump."
"Speaking of which, how's the Kung-Fu training going?" Morpheus asked.
"Oh pretty typical for a fan fiction. The new guy's beating the crap out of Neo."
"WHAT!?" Morpheus dove for the monitor. "How?"
"Well the author wanted to outdo the movie, so he created a character more powerful than Neo, who learned how to manipulate The Matrix in one day instead of slowly, over the course of the plot."
"But wouldn't that cut to the very core of the movie? Neo's The One, the most powerful person ever to fight the machines, he's supposed to be special. And it's ruining the drama to have the new guy learn so fast." Morpheus was clearly stunned by what he saw. The new guy was clearly stronger and faster than Neo, who seemed to have forgotten how to slow time and fly.
"Like I said, fan fics are a learning experience." Trinity told him.
"Well at least he'll get reviewed by other authors and his skills will improve, right?"
"Not really... the other authors tend to be at around the same skill level and don't feel right giving too much negative feedback. They usually harp on the story's good points and ignore the problems. And the few people who do say something's wrong usually just say something like 'sorry dude, yer story sucks and you're gay.'"
"Hasn't anyone ever heard of constructive criticism?" Morpheus asked.
Trinity had to suppress a laugh. "All that went out of style with the political correctness movement."
Just then Neo unplugged himself from the Construct. "Whew! Man, that's new guys' good!" He said, with a smile on his face. "Remind me not to get on his bad side."
"Neo..." Morpheus started, "Aren't you even the least bit bothered by the fact that you went through a whole movie to learn your skills and this guy has bested you in everything you're proud of in just one day?"
"Nah." Neo brushed it off. "I think I'll just back down now and accept my new title."
"What new title?"
"Oh, I'm the Two now. The new guy's the new One."
"Well anyway, it's time for me to get into the Construct and show the new guy The Jump." Morpheus said.
"Careful, Morpheus..." Trinity warned. "Whatever you do don't say the line."
"What line? You mean 'nobody makes their first jump'?"
"D'oh!" Trinity slapped her forehead. "Now you've done it. If you say that before he jumps, he'll make it. If you had waited until after he jumped to say it, he'd miss."
"Why?"
"I don't know, that's just how fan fictions work."
Morpheus plugged himself into the Construct and explained the idea behind The Jump to the new guy, finishing his speech with "Free your mind..." At which point he turned and demonstrated the enormous leap over to the next building.
"Okay, that looks easy enough." The new guy backed off a couple steps, and took a huge leap over the edge of the building, morphed into a dragon, flew over to the next building, reverted to human form, and landed safely next to Morpheus.
"Aaaaarrrrggghhh!!" Morpheus backed off. "You can't do that! This is supposed to be your residual self image! You can't change it any more than you can alter the way you perceive yourself, to do so would clinically be insanity!"
"Oh that." The new guy brushed him off. "Well this isn't real so I can do anything."
"No you can't do ANYTHING!" Morpheus tried to explain. "You have to stay within the limits of human psychology and..."
"Oh don't give me that Frued babble. What's my next challenge? I'm eager to easily overcome some more feats that ordinary mortals would consider difficult."
"Where's the adventure in that?" Morpheus asked him.
"Adventure? This isn't about adventure. It's about who kicks the most ass. I think I'm ahead of Neo by at least three asses now. I think I'm ready to go into The Matrix now. Tank mentioned something about an Oracle I have to go see?"
"Well, yeah... usually we don't take people to her so soon, but I guess we can make an exception in your case."
Minutes later, Morpheus, Trinity, Neo, and the new guy were all in the Matrix, wearing sunglasses, tight shiny shirts, and heavy black leather trenchcoats even though it was the middle of summer and almost 90 degrees outside. "Hey wait a minute..." Morpheus stopped short. "If we're ALL in The Matrix, who's still on the ship?"
"Tank." Neo answered.
"And who else? He's watching us, who's driving? Who's keeping an eye out for Sentinels? Who's..."
"Morpheus, Morpheus, Morpheus..." Neo shook his head. "You're thinking too hard. Just try to settle down a little, okay? Just go with the flow. Look, we're here." Without any segway, they were at the Oracle's apartment door.
"I can only show you the door, you have to open it yourself." Morpheus told the new guy.
"Why's that?"
"Because the lock sticks, and you have to do this thing were you pull and push at the same time, and I never got the hang of it. Just jiggle it a little I think..."
Once inside, Neo looked around a saw the Buddhist boy bending the spoon with his mind. "What the... hey kid? You're STILL messing around with that damn spoon? Have you been at that ever since the last time I was here? What's it been, like, a month now? Don't you have any other hobbies?"
"There is no spoon." The kid answered.
"Yeah, we've been over that. I mean shouldn't you have moved on to something else, like, I don't know, bending steel bars or something?"
"Um... the... there is no spoon." The kid said again, suddenly extremely uncomfortable.
Trinity leaned over to whisper in Neo's ear. "His character was never developed enough to do anything else, time is standing still for him, he's been stuck in that same moment ever since the movie."
"Oh..." Neo said, understanding. "Sorry kid, I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that."
"There is no spoon!" The kid answered, happy again.
"Well now, who have you brought to see me today? Oh, surprise surprise, it's the new main character. Like I didn't see that coming. Okay, open your mouth and show me your palms." The Oracle said as she came out of the kitchen.
"Why?" The new guy asked.
"Because I did it in the movie and now I have to do it every time. I have to give you a freshly-baked cookie too. I swear, just have one gimmick and they squeeze the life out of it. The routine gets really old, believe me. Some guys in here have had the most atrocious breath. Okay, now for the prophesy. You're going to kill a few Agents, overshadow Neo completely, have a stupid, pointless disagreement with a fellow crew remember, and there will be a happy ending. Oh yeah, and Trinity, as long as you're here, you're pregnant with Neo's kid." The Oracle said between puffs on a cigarette.
"Wow, that's amazing!" The new guy said. "How did you know all that?"
"It happens in every fan fic." The Oracle answered. "Here have a cookie."
"Hey!" Neo stepped forward. "How come he gets specific details about the future and you just gave me a bunch of riddles and deliberately lied to me?"
"Because, my dialogue with you was written by professionals." The Oracle answered.
"Oooohhh...." Neo had that lightbulb-just-turning-on look on his face, fulfilling the overly hyphenated description quota for the fan fic. "Okay. Say as long as we're on the subject, what do you do when we're not around?"
"I start the next batch of cookies. There's enough fan fics going on that I'm making cookies full-time now. It wouldn't be so bad if I could make one batch and give a cookie to each new guy that walks in, but nooooo... I have to throw the rest of them away and give a fresh one to every single guy that walks in. I tell ya, this is no life for an Oracle."
"I'm sorry." Neo apologized. "I'll see if there's anything I can do about it."
"Well, thanks for the cookie!" The new guy said with his mouth full. "What do we do now?"
Trinity looked at her watch. "Well this is the part where we head back to the ship and get ambushed by Agents."
"Well, if we have to." Morpheus said. "Okay, let's go."
No sooner had the group left the run-down apartment building than a shot whizzed by Trinity's ear. "Agents!" She screamed, without even looking to make sure. Everybody ran for the nearest hard line out of The Matrix, which was a public phone, conveniently, a single block away. Morpheus was the first one out, but the Agent emptied his entire clip into the phone, ruining it for the others to escape, instead of shooting at them and just outright killing them.
"I guess we have to stand and fight then." The new guy said. Everybody pulled out their guns and started firing. A massive barrage of lead that rivaled the entire military power of Iraq was unleashed at the Agent, but he dodged every single one of them.
The new guy dropped his gun in shock. "Oh no! He dodged every single bullet, just like you told me he would, but for some reason I'm still surprised. Say, where did all those bullets go, anyway? If they didn't hit him?"
"Oh they just kind of go away." Trinity answered. "We don't have to worry about innocent bystanders or anything. In fact, nobody even heard us shooting or bothered to report the gunfire to the police."
"Oh, well that's convenient. All right, Mr. Agent, let's go!" The new guy leapt into hand to hand battle with the Agent. "Hey, don't I recognize you from somewhere?"
"Yeah, I'm the Agent Neo deleted at the end of the movie."
"Agent Smith?"
"No! Dammit stop calling me Agent Smith! Agents don't have names! I swear, these guys can pick up the tiniest little details like the year the Neb was constructed and Neo's exact height and weight, but for some reason they can't hear the word 'a'! As in the indefinite article! I said 'I'm **A** Smith', not 'I'm Smith'! It was deeply symbolic of my character and everybody took it literally!"
"Well, to be fair, you were listed that way in the credits, weren't you?" Trinity asked.
"What!? Oh for crying out loud... I'll have to check that after this fic is over."
"Say, why aren't you deleted anyway? Neo killed you." Trinity pointed out.
"I dunno, maybe the author watched too many soap operas. It's easier than making a new character. Now please keep the questions down, I'm trying to fight hand to hand here and too much dialogue distracts from the drama of a good fight."
The Agent and the new guy fought almost to a standstill, except it quickly became apparent that the new guy wasn't really putting his full heart into the fight. The first clue was that he had one of his hands tied behind his back. The other clue was that he yawned about 90 seconds into it.
Suddenly, the Agent pulled out a light sabre, hacking off the new guy's hand! "Aaarrrggghhh!" he screamed, falling down.
"Luke..." the Agent started, "I am your father. Join me and we will rule The Matrix as father and son!"
"Oh my God!" Trinity screamed. "It's worse than I thought! WE'RE IN A CROSSOVER!!!"
The scene ended with the closing iris effect.
--To be Continued...
After a few seconds, a voice came out of the darkness. "Hey, Trin?"
"Yeah Neo?"
"So... is this going to be continued or not?"
"Oh, no, that was an empty promise. The author got bored and moved on to something else."
"How can he just leave us hanging like this? I want to know what happens next."
"Well, to be honest, he probably didn't even know himself. When he couldn't figure it out, he just stopped."
"Oh crap. So what happens to the new guy?"
"He fades into obscurity, to be replaced when the next fan fic comes out."
"You mean we're going to have to do all this again?"
"I'm afraid so, Neo."
--The End (really)
--Byl Glinka
"I'm having the worst feeling of deja-vu..." Morpheus said to no one in particular. "There's something not right about all this."
"Like what?" Trinity asked, her eyes still glued to the monitor, keeping an eye on the happenings in the Construct.
"Well, haven't you noticed that everything that's been going on with our new recruit was kind of... I don't know... familiar?"
"No, I guess I didn't. How do you mean?"
"Well first the Agents came after him, then we contacted him, then the Agents bugged him, and not only that, but it was the same freakin' Agent that bugged Neo, then we de-bugged him and brought him into the real world... only to watch him go through the exact same complications with the unplugging procedure as Neo went through, right down to the mirror crawling up his arm." Morpheus started.
"I'm not following you." Trinity looked up at him.
"Wait, there's more. So we brought him out, repaired his muscles, gave him his first meal, and I found myself using almost the exact same speech I gave Neo when we brought him up to date on what's going on."
"Meaning..." Trinity still wasn't getting it.
"It's like everything is repeating itself. Almost word for word, action for action." Morpheus tried to clarify it. "Only with this new guy instead of Neo. And another thing, have you noticed that we're both completely out of character?"
"Oh, that... Morpheus, we're in a fan fic." Trinity explained to him. "What did you think, this was the sequel or something?"
"What's a 'fan fic'?" Morpheus was confused.
"Oh, sorry. I forgot how long ago you were pulled out of The Matrix. It's like this... when an aspiring writer is getting started, they're either not creative enough to write their own original plot yet, or they don't want to waste their good ideas on learning how to write. So they write a story based on a movie, TV show, video game, or whatever."
"I think I get it..." Morpheus answered. "So everything's been going so similarly because the author is trying to explain it to anyone who didn't see the movie?"
"Well, no." Trinity answered.
"Then it's because the author is paying homage to the movie?"
"Actually, that's not it either."
"Well what then?" Morpheus was confused.
"Usually they're just too lazy to come up with something original." Trinity explained.
"But wouldn't that turn the whole fan fic into a novelization of the movie?"
"Oh no, usually things start deviating from the movie at either the Kung-Fu training or The Jump."
"Speaking of which, how's the Kung-Fu training going?" Morpheus asked.
"Oh pretty typical for a fan fiction. The new guy's beating the crap out of Neo."
"WHAT!?" Morpheus dove for the monitor. "How?"
"Well the author wanted to outdo the movie, so he created a character more powerful than Neo, who learned how to manipulate The Matrix in one day instead of slowly, over the course of the plot."
"But wouldn't that cut to the very core of the movie? Neo's The One, the most powerful person ever to fight the machines, he's supposed to be special. And it's ruining the drama to have the new guy learn so fast." Morpheus was clearly stunned by what he saw. The new guy was clearly stronger and faster than Neo, who seemed to have forgotten how to slow time and fly.
"Like I said, fan fics are a learning experience." Trinity told him.
"Well at least he'll get reviewed by other authors and his skills will improve, right?"
"Not really... the other authors tend to be at around the same skill level and don't feel right giving too much negative feedback. They usually harp on the story's good points and ignore the problems. And the few people who do say something's wrong usually just say something like 'sorry dude, yer story sucks and you're gay.'"
"Hasn't anyone ever heard of constructive criticism?" Morpheus asked.
Trinity had to suppress a laugh. "All that went out of style with the political correctness movement."
Just then Neo unplugged himself from the Construct. "Whew! Man, that's new guys' good!" He said, with a smile on his face. "Remind me not to get on his bad side."
"Neo..." Morpheus started, "Aren't you even the least bit bothered by the fact that you went through a whole movie to learn your skills and this guy has bested you in everything you're proud of in just one day?"
"Nah." Neo brushed it off. "I think I'll just back down now and accept my new title."
"What new title?"
"Oh, I'm the Two now. The new guy's the new One."
"Well anyway, it's time for me to get into the Construct and show the new guy The Jump." Morpheus said.
"Careful, Morpheus..." Trinity warned. "Whatever you do don't say the line."
"What line? You mean 'nobody makes their first jump'?"
"D'oh!" Trinity slapped her forehead. "Now you've done it. If you say that before he jumps, he'll make it. If you had waited until after he jumped to say it, he'd miss."
"Why?"
"I don't know, that's just how fan fictions work."
Morpheus plugged himself into the Construct and explained the idea behind The Jump to the new guy, finishing his speech with "Free your mind..." At which point he turned and demonstrated the enormous leap over to the next building.
"Okay, that looks easy enough." The new guy backed off a couple steps, and took a huge leap over the edge of the building, morphed into a dragon, flew over to the next building, reverted to human form, and landed safely next to Morpheus.
"Aaaaarrrrggghhh!!" Morpheus backed off. "You can't do that! This is supposed to be your residual self image! You can't change it any more than you can alter the way you perceive yourself, to do so would clinically be insanity!"
"Oh that." The new guy brushed him off. "Well this isn't real so I can do anything."
"No you can't do ANYTHING!" Morpheus tried to explain. "You have to stay within the limits of human psychology and..."
"Oh don't give me that Frued babble. What's my next challenge? I'm eager to easily overcome some more feats that ordinary mortals would consider difficult."
"Where's the adventure in that?" Morpheus asked him.
"Adventure? This isn't about adventure. It's about who kicks the most ass. I think I'm ahead of Neo by at least three asses now. I think I'm ready to go into The Matrix now. Tank mentioned something about an Oracle I have to go see?"
"Well, yeah... usually we don't take people to her so soon, but I guess we can make an exception in your case."
Minutes later, Morpheus, Trinity, Neo, and the new guy were all in the Matrix, wearing sunglasses, tight shiny shirts, and heavy black leather trenchcoats even though it was the middle of summer and almost 90 degrees outside. "Hey wait a minute..." Morpheus stopped short. "If we're ALL in The Matrix, who's still on the ship?"
"Tank." Neo answered.
"And who else? He's watching us, who's driving? Who's keeping an eye out for Sentinels? Who's..."
"Morpheus, Morpheus, Morpheus..." Neo shook his head. "You're thinking too hard. Just try to settle down a little, okay? Just go with the flow. Look, we're here." Without any segway, they were at the Oracle's apartment door.
"I can only show you the door, you have to open it yourself." Morpheus told the new guy.
"Why's that?"
"Because the lock sticks, and you have to do this thing were you pull and push at the same time, and I never got the hang of it. Just jiggle it a little I think..."
Once inside, Neo looked around a saw the Buddhist boy bending the spoon with his mind. "What the... hey kid? You're STILL messing around with that damn spoon? Have you been at that ever since the last time I was here? What's it been, like, a month now? Don't you have any other hobbies?"
"There is no spoon." The kid answered.
"Yeah, we've been over that. I mean shouldn't you have moved on to something else, like, I don't know, bending steel bars or something?"
"Um... the... there is no spoon." The kid said again, suddenly extremely uncomfortable.
Trinity leaned over to whisper in Neo's ear. "His character was never developed enough to do anything else, time is standing still for him, he's been stuck in that same moment ever since the movie."
"Oh..." Neo said, understanding. "Sorry kid, I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that."
"There is no spoon!" The kid answered, happy again.
"Well now, who have you brought to see me today? Oh, surprise surprise, it's the new main character. Like I didn't see that coming. Okay, open your mouth and show me your palms." The Oracle said as she came out of the kitchen.
"Why?" The new guy asked.
"Because I did it in the movie and now I have to do it every time. I have to give you a freshly-baked cookie too. I swear, just have one gimmick and they squeeze the life out of it. The routine gets really old, believe me. Some guys in here have had the most atrocious breath. Okay, now for the prophesy. You're going to kill a few Agents, overshadow Neo completely, have a stupid, pointless disagreement with a fellow crew remember, and there will be a happy ending. Oh yeah, and Trinity, as long as you're here, you're pregnant with Neo's kid." The Oracle said between puffs on a cigarette.
"Wow, that's amazing!" The new guy said. "How did you know all that?"
"It happens in every fan fic." The Oracle answered. "Here have a cookie."
"Hey!" Neo stepped forward. "How come he gets specific details about the future and you just gave me a bunch of riddles and deliberately lied to me?"
"Because, my dialogue with you was written by professionals." The Oracle answered.
"Oooohhh...." Neo had that lightbulb-just-turning-on look on his face, fulfilling the overly hyphenated description quota for the fan fic. "Okay. Say as long as we're on the subject, what do you do when we're not around?"
"I start the next batch of cookies. There's enough fan fics going on that I'm making cookies full-time now. It wouldn't be so bad if I could make one batch and give a cookie to each new guy that walks in, but nooooo... I have to throw the rest of them away and give a fresh one to every single guy that walks in. I tell ya, this is no life for an Oracle."
"I'm sorry." Neo apologized. "I'll see if there's anything I can do about it."
"Well, thanks for the cookie!" The new guy said with his mouth full. "What do we do now?"
Trinity looked at her watch. "Well this is the part where we head back to the ship and get ambushed by Agents."
"Well, if we have to." Morpheus said. "Okay, let's go."
No sooner had the group left the run-down apartment building than a shot whizzed by Trinity's ear. "Agents!" She screamed, without even looking to make sure. Everybody ran for the nearest hard line out of The Matrix, which was a public phone, conveniently, a single block away. Morpheus was the first one out, but the Agent emptied his entire clip into the phone, ruining it for the others to escape, instead of shooting at them and just outright killing them.
"I guess we have to stand and fight then." The new guy said. Everybody pulled out their guns and started firing. A massive barrage of lead that rivaled the entire military power of Iraq was unleashed at the Agent, but he dodged every single one of them.
The new guy dropped his gun in shock. "Oh no! He dodged every single bullet, just like you told me he would, but for some reason I'm still surprised. Say, where did all those bullets go, anyway? If they didn't hit him?"
"Oh they just kind of go away." Trinity answered. "We don't have to worry about innocent bystanders or anything. In fact, nobody even heard us shooting or bothered to report the gunfire to the police."
"Oh, well that's convenient. All right, Mr. Agent, let's go!" The new guy leapt into hand to hand battle with the Agent. "Hey, don't I recognize you from somewhere?"
"Yeah, I'm the Agent Neo deleted at the end of the movie."
"Agent Smith?"
"No! Dammit stop calling me Agent Smith! Agents don't have names! I swear, these guys can pick up the tiniest little details like the year the Neb was constructed and Neo's exact height and weight, but for some reason they can't hear the word 'a'! As in the indefinite article! I said 'I'm **A** Smith', not 'I'm Smith'! It was deeply symbolic of my character and everybody took it literally!"
"Well, to be fair, you were listed that way in the credits, weren't you?" Trinity asked.
"What!? Oh for crying out loud... I'll have to check that after this fic is over."
"Say, why aren't you deleted anyway? Neo killed you." Trinity pointed out.
"I dunno, maybe the author watched too many soap operas. It's easier than making a new character. Now please keep the questions down, I'm trying to fight hand to hand here and too much dialogue distracts from the drama of a good fight."
The Agent and the new guy fought almost to a standstill, except it quickly became apparent that the new guy wasn't really putting his full heart into the fight. The first clue was that he had one of his hands tied behind his back. The other clue was that he yawned about 90 seconds into it.
Suddenly, the Agent pulled out a light sabre, hacking off the new guy's hand! "Aaarrrggghhh!" he screamed, falling down.
"Luke..." the Agent started, "I am your father. Join me and we will rule The Matrix as father and son!"
"Oh my God!" Trinity screamed. "It's worse than I thought! WE'RE IN A CROSSOVER!!!"
The scene ended with the closing iris effect.
--To be Continued...
After a few seconds, a voice came out of the darkness. "Hey, Trin?"
"Yeah Neo?"
"So... is this going to be continued or not?"
"Oh, no, that was an empty promise. The author got bored and moved on to something else."
"How can he just leave us hanging like this? I want to know what happens next."
"Well, to be honest, he probably didn't even know himself. When he couldn't figure it out, he just stopped."
"Oh crap. So what happens to the new guy?"
"He fades into obscurity, to be replaced when the next fan fic comes out."
"You mean we're going to have to do all this again?"
"I'm afraid so, Neo."
--The End (really)
