Apr. 11th, 2010

browngirl: (Thinking (Hyel))
The people I know say so many awesome things in general, but especially recently. For instance: Why the Culture of Mary Sue Shaming is Bully Culture by [livejournal.com profile] boosette, which links to and reminded me of:

on mary sue policing and why i cannot abide it by [livejournal.com profile] niquaeli

"Because when I was a 13-year-old getting indoctrinated into fanfic, it seemed to me that the takeaway lesson wasn't "write nuanced characters that make sense in their environment". It was, "don't write about women being awesome"," quoted from [livejournal.com profile] goldjadeocean.

I shall not let loose my teal deer of agreement, but I will note that in response people often say "I don't like Mary Sues because they're bad writing; by decrying the use of the term you are promoting bad writing." But are Mary Sues, the female character who is obviously authorial wish-fulfilment and unconvincingly depicted as worthy of adulation, really the worst or the only way to write badly? If not, could there be reasons beyond the promotion of better writing that bring fannish culture to come down on perceived Mary Sues and their authors so particularly hard?

Also, it seems appropriate to plug [livejournal.com profile] where_no_woman as an antidote to the idea that we shouldn't write women as being awesome. It's a place that celebrates female characters from all the Star Trek franchises (not just Reboot), including those with such small canon mentions they might as well be OFCs.

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