Maisie and Holly Read Marcie and Gina (and Tracy) Read Controlling Maisie

"What the fuck was Tony thinking?" Maisie stared at her laptop monitor in disbelief "Another author submits their Controlling Maisie branch for these two bitches to lay into me over, without him even knowing, and when he finds out his reaction is to immediately offer up his branch as well?"

"It's his story, he created you" Holly shrugged as she read over her sisters shoulder with interest "He wanted his chapters to be the ones getting all the attention"

"So what you're saying is, Tony's ego is so out of control that, if anyone is getting their work ripped to shreds by this pair of assholes, he reckons it should be him?"

"I think that's what's happened here, yes" Holly nodded "You have to admit though, Marcie and Gina are quite an entertaining read"

"No I don't! All they do is insult everything and make endless references to Harem Hotel which, by the way, not everyone has fucking read. It's about three million chapters long for a start"

"Shall we just see what they have to say before you get yourself worked up. sis?"

"Okay, fine. But I already know I'm not going to like this...."

“You are enjoying this aren’t you, Marcie?”
“Hm, a little bit. I think their relationship is rather cute. The master is clearly in charge but he does care enough about Maisie do not just assault her. I like it when authors find a good balance.”

"Okay, I definitely mind Marcie less out of the two" Maisie decided "At least you will sometimes get a considered critique out of her"

"I'm glad Tony, for all his faults, didn't make this a story where you got relentlessly fucked over by some irredeemable monster, and it's nice that Marcie noticed" Holly agreed.

“Something rather annoying is that this story tends to spoil the chapter with the title. Such as this. It makes reading the chapter feel somewhat redundant.”

"Okay, so I think it may be helpful context to point out that this was still early days for Tony as a writer in this format. He was still figuring out stuff like chapter titles. I don't personally think the example here was all that spoilery, but he has got better about that kind of thing" Holly pointed out.

"Yeah, now it's all song lyrics and whatever he thinks passes for clever word play" Maisie added with a hint of irritation.

“Ann then vanishes and is never seen again for the rest of the story.”
“That was pointless.”

"Ann was an obscure Arrested Development joke that only Tony was ever going to get" Holly explained "She was there to give MC a hint that Maisie actually liked being the one getting his undivided attention. but was otherwise a boring forgettable and entirely disposable character by design"

"Poor Egg" Maisie quipped "Y'see, I used to like that show too"

“HOLY TIMESKIP!”
“Yes, a bit of an odd choice, given that we are only 18 chapters into the story. 18 relatively short chapters I might add.”

"Ah yeah, the time skip. Where I'm suddenly nearly forty years old and not in my own story that much anymore. I wasn't too thrilled with that narrative decision either"

"Again, context is key here" Holly chimed in "There were so many MC and Maisie branches springing up at that time that Tony decided to do something radical to differentiate his own from the crowd - new characters, a shift to third person perspective, me finally getting a mention in the primary branch after having already appeared and even starred in so many others. Of course, to anyone who reads this branch first, and considering its placement it would inevitably be viewed as the logical starting point, it was bound to be a confusing decision"

"THE MOST DISGUSTING FIGURATION OF LETTERS I EVER LAID MY EYES UPON! 6 CHARACTERS! ALL ENDING ON Y! FIVE OF THEM FIVE LETTERS LONG! NOT EVEN WRYNN IS THAT INEPT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

"Okay, so what's the deal with the naming system in our family anyway?"

Holly pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes and exhaled silently as she considered the question.

"As I understand it, Tony noticed that three or four of us had similarly constructed names, and thought it would be a cute touch if that extended to every single female we were related to. Kind of like a family quirk"

"A bit of a lame and pointless family quirk isn't it?"

"Indeed. I think we can all agree it wasn't one of Tony's greatest ideas"

"Still, a bit of a fucking overreaction, huh? Just as well she never got to meet Mary, Carly, Melanie, Ellie, Kylie or Abby"

Tracy: “Ok, that’s kinda cool. I like how both character try to bamboozle each other. I like stuff like that.”

"I think Tracy is already my favourite" Maisie declared.

Tracy: “Hold up. Isn’t this story supposed to take place twenty years in the future?”
Gina: “Yeah, so?”
Tracy: “PS5 should be retro by then. Why are they playing with retro stuff? I mean, if they are into that, sure but..”

"Okay, totally valid point" Holly admitted "How easy would it have been for Tony to have changed that to PS8?"

"Yeah, what a dumbass"

Gina: “Can we kill him already?”
Tracy: “Now you’re speaking my language!”

"People in the comments wanted me to kill Craig too" Maisie recalled "They were literally getting angry with me for not doing it. I mean, I kicked him in the head and put him into a coma. Wasn't that enough?"

"I also think Tony was protecting you as much as Craig, not wanting to turn you into a murderer which would have been a pretty extreme turn of events for you. I do agree Craig never really got punished for his misdeeds, but then the good guys in this story weren't the type who were out for blood, just a peaceful resolution. Part of the whole moral of the story, if there was one, was that revenge can make a bad situation even worse"

"Okay Mais, so what did you think of their review? You don't seem as annoyed as you thought you would be"

"I'm not. A lot of the points they made were irritatingly valid, I kind of liked Tracy and finally Gina says something I can get behind - there's not enough of me in this branch! Still, I never want to be judged by any of these people ever again"

"Then, I suppose that concludes our review of the review!"

With that slightly unpleasant business out of the way, Holly wandered off to get on with her day. However, when she eventually made her way back into Maisie's room some time later, she found her sister still gawping at her monitor.

"Do these pictures look disgustingly off centre to you, Hols?" Maisie was tilting her head and squinting slightly as she spoke.

"Honestly, Mais, the amount of frustrated attempts it took Tony to even get a picture up at all the first time he tried, Marcie should just be grateful they didn't come out upside down"