1.7 Mina de Malfois and the House of Mourning (part one)
Disclaimer: These stories and characters are the sole property of the author. This is a work of fiction. No resemblance is intended to any person or persons living, dead, or online. No BNFs were harmed in the making of this fic.

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I’d known, pretty much right from the point when my informants began to regale me with the tale of BalletChic’s ill-fated play for PrinceC’s affection, where all this would inevitably end. I mean, look at the thing logically. She’d ripped off a fair number of her friends and supporters, absconding to ConFanLitCon on their money. Her art had failed to impress the con organizers, who tend as a group to be wary of plagiarism. Her self-insert RPF hadn’t wooed PrinceC, and had probably scared him, though he was manfully keeping silent about the whole thing.

To a cynical BNF such as myself, it was patently obvious what she’d do next. In situations such as hers, fandom’s Magic 8-Ball returns its traditional answer: all signs point to pseuicide.

So when she locked down comments on her livejournal, I merely shrugged in a web-weary manner. When she deleted her DeviantArt account, and removed all of her artwork from the internet, I sighed impatiently. Her friends were variously castigating her, demanding their money back, asking for apologies, or, increasingly, pleading with her to please, please, please tell them what was going on. I, however, along with anyone who’d seen this sort of thing before, awaited the familiar chain of events.

To be honest, my attention was absorbed elsewhere anyway. The creators of Sanguinity had unveiled a tie-in MMORPG, and I was, to put it mildly, enthralled. I’d read every magazine article and online review I could get my hands on in the lead-up to its release, and pre-registered my avatar the instant I could. The game hadn’t, technically, started yet, but I was busy poring over the creators’ newsletter and planning my strategy.

‘You know what would help pass the time?’ Arc had asked dryly. ‘Updating your fic.’

‘I will, I will,’ I’d promised her breezily, but I hadn’t found time yet to get the next chapters submitted. The Penn’d Passion submission form is lengthy, and I was having trouble squeezing it into my schedule.

‘Do you think,’ I messaged PrinceC, ‘property rights will be protected within the game? I’d love to build a replica of the Malfois Estate in gamespace.’ I’d asked, and naturally received, his permission to use his OFC’s name, Lady Horatia Marianna Wilhelmina de Malfois, as my avatar name, and I’d fallen into the habit of speculating about the game with him.

‘I think land ownership will be tied to the premium accounts,’ he responded. Bugger. Naturally he’d already purchased a premium account for his avatar, Prince Choronzon Erik Vladimir de Gravina. I was still saving up for mine. It was causing me some slight anxiety, actually, because I wasn’t sure I’d have the funds in time for the game’s opening, and then there were the monthly fees to worry about. At this rate, a gamespace Malfois estate wouldn’t be much more affordable than a real one. But a premium account was absolutely essential, or else Lady Mina--as my avatar would be called for short--wouldn't have the accessories and clothes my, I mean her, image required.

The days were just eaten up with planning and anticipation. I not only couldn’t get motivated to work on my fanfic, I barely had time for non-game conversation. I almost missed seeing BalletChic’s last post, but the shockwave of internet reaction brought it to my attention.

‘Dear All,’ she’d written, ‘the time has come to make an ending, and I owe it to my friends and family to say goodbye. Know, at the close of my days, I loved you all. Not as well as you deserved, I know, but I tried. The lies have grown too heavy now, and the mistakes cannot be rectified. Friendship, it turns out, has a price after all, and I, alas, exceeded it unknowingly. The One I chose to give myself to refused the gift. Think not for a moment I intend Him to feel any guilt or sorrow, but know only that my desire and devotion remain intact. My love has not wavered. For Him I make this sacrifice. My life's blood will not have been spilt in vain if it proves to Him the depth of my love. And love’s power knows no limits. Perhaps it will grant the secret wishes of my heart, and allow me comfort from beyond the grave. I make my ending now, alone, but without regret. Farewell. Love enduring, BalletChic.’

By next morning, mourning’s minions were out in full strength. The entire internet proceeded to go nuts. Girls, their comments strewn with *sobs* and *hugs*, left impassioned memorials all over the place. Poems were composed to BalletChic, and artwork tributes--the bulk of which featured unicorns, angels, and roses--sprang up everywhere. One girl created a breathtakingly schmoopy drawing of a lone pair of ballet shoes discarded in a corner, and was immediately friended by several hundred fellow bereaved.

Comments were turned off on BalletChic’s livejournal, so somebody created a community called ‘remember_Bchic,’ and a thousand people promptly turned up to declare, ‘I didn’t know her, but I can’t stop crying.’ Not to be outdone, a competing MySpace community, BalletChicMemories, sprang into existence, and all the cutters posted poetry that was even more emo than usual. The people who she’d successfully conned out of hundreds of dollars fell all over themselves expressing their regret, guilt, and determination to live better, kinder lives in her honour.

Even PrinceC, at one point, referred to her as ‘that poor kid,’ which filled me with an urge to shake him. I said nothing, however. Those few of us who’d kept some kind of perspective were very careful to keep quiet at this point. Hysterical online mourners never react kindly to levelheaded reminders about pseuicide.

‘Arc,’ I asked her, just to check, ‘what do you think of all this?’

‘I think it’s psychologically interesting,’ she said, ‘to watch full-fledged mourning over a person who is, undoubtedly, still alive. How’s the fic coming?’

I debated telling her that I’d been too distraught to type, but thought better of it. Even Arc’s patience probably had limits.

‘I’m typing up chapter one tonight,’ I told her, and I did get to work on it, but I kept peeking back at the rituals of grief. The dysphoria continued unabated. BalletChic was more beloved in ‘death’ than she’d ever been in life. A horrible thought struck me.

‘Arc!’ I messaged her.

‘Yes?’ she asked. I sensed a certain level of suspicion, such as ought not to exist between archivist and author, and rushed to allay it.

‘I’ve typed up chapter one, which I’m emailing to you right now,’ I assured her, ‘but I’ve just realized I can’t possibly submit it just yet.’

‘It might get overlooked in the current hysteria,’ she agreed, and once again I marvelled at her insight.

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait it out until the end of the week, when things have calmed down a bit.’

I was giving them too much credit, there, and overestimating the speed with which calm reason would overtake the frenzied. My favourite mail order perfumery, to my annoyance, sold out of both ‘Final Resting Place’ and ‘Ashes of Grief.’ CDs of ‘music that reminds us of BalletChic’ were created, and several of my own fans, under the impression that I, too, shared their sorrow, mailed copies of these to me. A few of them also sent me burned copies of a Very Special Podcast dedicated to BalletChic.

By the end of the week, a ghastly new fad had sprung up. Fangirls, gripped by a belief that ‘any one of us could die at any moment,’ and unable to assuage that belief by a simple exchange of fanart and fanfic, were weaving bracelets out of their own hair and mailing these off to people they especially wanted to be remembered by.

‘Arc,’ I urged her, ‘I’d appreciate it if you could open all my incoming mail, and burn anything you find that looks like it might be made out of human hair, okay?’

No go. ‘Am forwarding all your mail immediately, unopened,’ she typed firmly, and I can’t say I blame her. The thought of the artifacts that might, even as we spoke, be laying there in the mail stack, filled one with a kind of dread.

Speaking of fannish creations, BalletChic’s now vanished artwork had gained a reputation to be envied. Her scanned, cut and pasted, photoshopped concoctions were now being seriously discussed as the creative, beautiful output of a tortured soul. In vain did the ConFanLitCon organizers attempt to remind people that a short while ago they’d been laughing at these same pictures. The shadow of the grave apparently makes stuff look better. Photoshopping was too an art form, insisted the same people who, some ten days previously, had been denouncing her as an untalented, thieving fraud. She hadn’t been an obsessive, stalkerish fangirl, they argued now; cutting and pasting her own photos into her fanart was a post-modern critique and re-examination of the entire Mary Sue phenomenon.

My eyes were rolling more or less constantly these days. The ocular strain was enormous. BalletChic was an even more successful con artist now that she was ‘deceased’--a sort of Shade of Fraud.

The Sammiches were reaping the side benefits, such as they were. BalletChic’s only remaining piece of fanfic was the one shot PB/J piece I’d cleared for inclusion in ‘Dread Lane.’ She either hadn’t ever written anything else, or she’d deleted it along with her ‘art.’ This story now became the focus for a lot of the virtually bereaved, who sighed over her portrayal of Jab and PrincessB’s One True Love. Sammich devotees churned out essays, and I use that verb advisedly, on what it meant that a lonely, depressed girl had nevertheless found some measure of comfort in the deeply meaningful romance of two fictional characters who don’t actually date in the game. The Booters, for once, held their aristocratic tongues, unwilling to heap derision on BalletChic’s recently departed plebeian soul.

I only had one real source of consolation in all of this. If it was irritating me to watch the wave of post-mortem popularity sweeping over BalletChic, it must be irritating her even more. Because of course I had no doubt she was out there, watching all of this unfold. No fangirl, turning to pseuicide as a way out of a tight spot, ever stays away for long. I’d been watching, expecting at any moment to see someone claiming to be BalletChic’s best friend, or mother, or twin sister, emerge to ride the crest of her newly created fame.

I’d been, it turned out, underestimating her creativity.



next: Mina de Malfois and the House of Mourning (part two)