Mary P. Sue

Practically perfect in every way.

[marypsue]

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about • AO3 • fic and samples • original writing

Fearleading Squad on AO3

Evil cheerleaders, the Satanic Panic, high school friendship drama, and murder all combine to ruin an innocent gothic rocker’s senior year in this short and sweet horror novella. If you liked Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy, Grady Hendrix’ My Best Friend’s Exorcism, Heathers, Jennifer’s Body, or the fan favourite new kids on the block from Stranger Things season four, this might be up your alley.

[ao3commentoftheday]

I keep making posts about short fics, and I'm going to continue doing so because on every short fic post I make, I get people who love short fics but I also get authors who feel guilty because they don't write "full fics" or "complete stories"

Short fics are complete. Short fics are full stories. There are more tales in the world than just novels. There are more ways of sharing your idea than creating an entire world to go along with it.

You can tell a complete story in 100 words. You can call a fic complete and full and fleshed out, even without all of the context or history or world building in your brain.

Your readers have imaginations, just like you do. Have faith that they'll be able to fill in any blanks on their own. Trust that they'll enjoy what you put out, even if it's short.

Stop measuring yourself with a ruler that doesn't even matter. If you want to write a long fic, that's wonderful. I wish you well.

But if you don't want to write novels, please stop apologizing for that. You have nothing to feel bad about. Be proud that you can capture a moment or a feeling or an idea in just a few words. Not everyone can do that.

[spectralgecko]

100% agree

We wrote flash fiction in our short story club today. It was a blast. Each one was a full, complete story.

None of them were over 500 words, and the lowest was 286. We could've gone even shorter with different parameters or if we'd tried. You can accomplish a lot in 100 words.

It's ok to write short stuff. I gravitate to short stories for fanfiction because that's what I have time for. Novels are exhausting and not everyone gels well with the writing process for them. That's ok. Different people write differently, and you'll have different lengths you like for different things! It's great!

[katgecs]

more photos of washington by me

[veliseraptor]

I understand why "make bad art" can be an effective rallying cry for some, but for me personally it has never worked; my entire perfectionist being locks up at the idea of making something bad. For me, it just feels like if something is really and truly bad then what was the point of doing it at all? Personally, I don't find it motivational or encouraging.

The two things I have found that actually do help me are a combination of "I'll fix it in post" (the first version doesn't have to be good, it can be polished up later) and "not everything I make has to be my best work."

don't get me wrong I'm still very bad at accepting either of these things, but I've personally found them more practicable than trying to tell myself it's okay to "make bad art."

[teratocybernetics]

'#one thing that helped break a friend of his perfectionist tendencies#was a friend of his saying 'oh so the rest of us need to be like this too?'#and him going no i have to be perfect to make up for me you don't need to#and his friend just laughing and going: man. what's so special about you?'

[thesoldiersminute]

Forbidden Fruits dir. Meredith Alloway | 2026

[sheabutterrosesandeucalyptuspls]

cxozyt

[nihilisticlinguistics]

I've been really enjoying some accidentally excellent fiction-nonfiction pairings in my recent reading. to wit, You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman + Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings, and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende + The Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano

where the nonfiction text offers enrichment and elaboration on the structural tensions presented (to varying degrees of explicitness) in the fiction text. not that they're linked in any way by their creators but that they're speaking to the same thing from the angles of fiction + nonfiction

so I'm now seeking recommendations of favorite nonfiction-fiction pairings in that vein. what have yall got?

[florantheiia]

god forbid a man grows a mullet

[astriiformes]

Overheard two (high school? probably?) girls discussing some book on the train, with a lot of "They're just SO gay for each other" type comments and did not think much of it at first until it became clear to me over the course of their conversation that they were in fact discussing the main characters of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic gothic horror novella The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

[planetarywondur]

Another crochet skirt ❤️ made the maxi skirt using pix.zel’s maxi skirt pattern🪲 I started this back in February or March I believe! I started a new job so this went on the back burner but I finally got the motivation to finish it for my birthday! Super happy I did <3

[fashion-puppy]

[witchrealms]

(x)

[nellasbookplanet]

Something so funny about rereading one's own unfinished fics. Like wow this is pretty good! Almost as if was written exactly according to what I personally like in fact! Someone should finish it!

[kitsunetsuki-deactivated2026051]

Peter Lindbergh - Le Touquet, 1988, from Alaïa by François Baudot (1996)

[flowersforvax]

haha nooooo fandom don't sand off all the rough edges and pointy bits off of that character those are the parts I scratch my brain with

[koritea]

It's you!

[queerpyracy]

gave the boys some mineral salt (ft. filming assistance from beck)