I Love You, Mary Sue!

Nice :)

Jill Bearup

I think this video and This article <a href="https://medium.com/fansplaining/mary-sue-975366a18677" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://medium.com/fansplaining/mary-sue-975366a18677</a> are practically complaion peaces.

David Formosa

Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. Written by Bruce Coville. I listened to the audio book version and loved it. Shockingly, I haven't read it since then. Probably about time I did.

I think it may require a certain mood to appreciate, at least if you're me. I should try it again at some point, now I've found it on fanfiction.net.

Jill Bearup

Thank you! I used to be pretty down on them but as I got older I realised...they're not great literature, sure, but somebody loves them, so why crush the dreams of their creator? What book did you genderswap?

Jill Bearup

For the longest time, I never knew fanfiction was a thing. One time, when I was 10 years old, I had to create a story for class, and I chose to create a gender-swapped version of what was my favorite book at the time. The teacher, who already didn't like me, practically accused me of plagiarism. While I admit it wasn't a clever thing to do, I still defend it, and I wish someone had taken the opportunity to explain fanfiction to me. Later on, I decided that I could never write the characters as awesomely as the originals, so I didn't, although I had fun adding characters to stories that I loved, and thought about while reading them. Later on, once I was 17, I finally came up with my own world to put characters in, which was quite freeing. I think now that everyone starts out putting themselves into their work, and honestly, they should be allowed to do so, particularly little girls who don't necessarily see themselves in their favorite fiction. I'm glad you said this about Mary Sues. I've never thought about it, but I have to agree.

MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA!!!!!!!!

Jill Bearup

That sounds...kind of amazing actually.

Jill Bearup

LOL. So yeah, in a land of manipulative media I'm not sweating the notion that female characters will become too awesome. Its pretty much the best crisis ever, like when I had to take costume workshop because everything else was full. I still can't sew, but I did receive college credit for allowing talented, beautiful women to feed me Hershey's. Sorta like that saying about when "Life gives you lemons", except with chocolate.

One cigarette will RUIN YOUR LIFE KIDS. AND GROWN UP KIDS. (serious nod)

Jill Bearup

That's the danger of an author cherry picking narrative consequences. It is possible to write an awesome party scene, and just leave out the liver disease. Media geeks love to fantasize about being the life of said party. Granted, I've seen the other extreme as well. There's allot of Neoconservative fiction where some teen's life is ruined by one Marlboro or the supposedly catastrophic realization that they won't be asexual while waiting on marriage and then the perfect monogamous breeder ever after. You mentioned in your recent Narnia review that book burnings often happen because we are culturally aware of how stories effect children. I would further postulate that some authors\critics don't believe in adulthood, seeing only an audience of perpetual kids chasing different flavors of candy.

Eating together is a great way to strengthen the social bonds. How is Ursa Minor? Has she learned any new words, except for "k!" (meaning cat, IIRC)?

Anders

Thanksgiving service, technically. Like, hey, you had a baby! Yay! You are thankful to God for the baby! (At least some of the time...) You say this in front of your friends and family, everybody promises to help support you and aforementioned baby, and there's food. The food is optional, but I think a welcome addition. Kind of like a christening, but without making promises on behalf of your baby. They make those themselves if they want to when they're older.

Jill Bearup

I'm with you. 'Alcoholic' seems a weird choice for a 'cool character flaw'. I mean...alcoholism isn't really a barrel of awesome laughs. Unless cirrhosis of the liver is hilarious to people for some reason I guess?

Jill Bearup

Blessing service? What is this?

Anders

One thing I'll say for Mary Sues is that they aren't necessarily more egregious in the "cool flaws" department then other fictional characters in modern media. Its not surprising that authors are loathe to give their characters flaws that might cause them to be unlikable and unmarketable. In that sense, everyone who writes for the mass market is writing Mary Sues. Even so, I do find it a bit disturbing what some of the "coolest flaws" are deigned to be. The easiest way to identify the author's intended "cool rebel character" in almost any fictional universe is to look for the alcoholic. Its rather hard to convince alcoholics they have a problem when so many people are seemingly envious of that problem. Plus, the addict's social prestige is often linked to feeding the addiction, not overcoming it. Sure, there's inevitably some chosen one who gets to die nobly for their beliefs. But meanwhile, the alcoholic rebel gets to live through the story and probably have more sex then anyone else in the cast. The appeal is hard to miss, however misguided it might be.