[Literary Crossover] Miss Mary, Utterly Ordinary

At sixteen, Mary Bennet discovered the truth about the world and was devastated

All those years she had spent struggling, walking on eggshells, had amounted to nothing more than a side plot briefly mentioned in a novel.

Jane was the novel's second heroine, and married a wealthy young gentleman.

Elizabeth was the heroine, and married an even wealthier young gentleman.

And Mary was only an extra whose author couldn't even be bothered to mention her ending.

Her prospects were bleak, her fate uncertain. No one would see past her plain looks to fall in love with her equally dull soul.

Mary was not afraid of loneliness. She was afraid of accomplishing nothing.

To her, being infamous was better than being unknown.

To seize her destiny by the throat, she took stock of her situation and decided to give up on romantic fantasies and focus on building a career.

And so she made a few attempts

1. Beat up a down-on-his-luck Frenchman who had escaped prison.

2. Pretend to be the culprit in a serial murder case.

3. Match wits with a university professor from London.

4. Kidnap an innocent, disfigured homeless child.

6. Threaten a hot-tempered widower who had committed bigamy until he turned himself in...

At last, Mary realized that being a villain wasn't a promising career either.

So she turned over a new leaf and started behaving herself.

But just as she found an honest man and prepared to marry him for convenience, Mary received the Best Citizen Award from Buckingham Palace...

Reader's note:

1. The setting is fictional, with many liberties taken with the details. Readers who care about historical accuracy may wish to steer clear.

2. The male lead is Linton from Wuthering Heights. One-on-one, pure romance.

3. Updates are tentatively weekly, at 7 p.m.

Theme: Better to take your frustrations out on the world than turn them inward