Ode Mary Sue, Or Why I Joined LiveJournal
So, I joined the livejournal thing about a month ago, but I didn't really start writing anything until now. I figured, hell, if everyone else writes about their mundane day to day shit, I can too! Mary Sue's were what lured me here in the first place. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the term "Mary Sue" (and who stumbled here accidentally), I'll explain. In order to understand Mary Sues, you have to be familiar with a thing called fanfiction (or fan fiction). Fan fiction has been around for years, but with the birth of the internet it has multiplied and spread like some horrible, mutating virus. Basically, fan fiction involves a fan of some movie/tv show/actor/book/etc. sitting down and writing a nice little story at least somewhat based on the characters and storyline that they love. This is the best case scenario. In reality, most often the fan horribly warps both the characters and world to insert some thinly veiled version of themselves into the story. This thinly veiled version is the Mary Sue; most often perfect in every way, causing everyone around her/him (Marty Stu) to behave in a massively out of character manner. The reader on the other hand wavers from awestruck (at the nerve of the author) to annoyed; it's great fun however.
Mary Sues are probably strangely appealing to me because I wrote about a million of them in my younger years. I have several epic pieces involving myself and George Michael of Wham (hey, this is way before even he knew he was gay!) and various members of Duran Duran. The main character's, all female and based roughly on my appearance at the time, were always fending off evil rapists and falling into the arms of their saviors (George Michael and various members of Duran Duran). It was crappy, horrible, angsty fun. I didn't have a clue what relationships were like... hell, I was 14 and 15 at the time. Had the internet been existent way back when I most likely would have posted my "writings" up for all to see... and gotten the crappy, horrible reviews that they so richly deserved. I am eternally grateful that I grew up in the technological dark ages.
Back to the reason that I joined; I'd recently become interested in Mary Sue's and was spending a good deal of time finding them on fanfiction.net (a veritable goldmine of horrendous writing of all kinds). I think that I googled the term and came up with a gazillion different hits, one of them leading me to the marysues community here. I quickly thereafter found deleterius, a lovely group devoted to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter sues (those two books/movies get more sues than any other books and movies combined). The communities are full of wondrous, curmudgeonly "reviewers" who cringe at the violation of the characters and canon of their beloved books/movies/tv shows, yet at the same time have an excellent time dredging up these offenses to literacy. Great fun, all in all.
As a matter of fact, I now feel inspired to locate my prior offenses and type them up (they were all painstakingly handwritten). I doubt I'll foist them on the unsuspecting public, but it will at least give my friend's a good laugh.
Mary Sues are probably strangely appealing to me because I wrote about a million of them in my younger years. I have several epic pieces involving myself and George Michael of Wham (hey, this is way before even he knew he was gay!) and various members of Duran Duran. The main character's, all female and based roughly on my appearance at the time, were always fending off evil rapists and falling into the arms of their saviors (George Michael and various members of Duran Duran). It was crappy, horrible, angsty fun. I didn't have a clue what relationships were like... hell, I was 14 and 15 at the time. Had the internet been existent way back when I most likely would have posted my "writings" up for all to see... and gotten the crappy, horrible reviews that they so richly deserved. I am eternally grateful that I grew up in the technological dark ages.
Back to the reason that I joined; I'd recently become interested in Mary Sue's and was spending a good deal of time finding them on fanfiction.net (a veritable goldmine of horrendous writing of all kinds). I think that I googled the term and came up with a gazillion different hits, one of them leading me to the marysues community here. I quickly thereafter found deleterius, a lovely group devoted to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter sues (those two books/movies get more sues than any other books and movies combined). The communities are full of wondrous, curmudgeonly "reviewers" who cringe at the violation of the characters and canon of their beloved books/movies/tv shows, yet at the same time have an excellent time dredging up these offenses to literacy. Great fun, all in all.
As a matter of fact, I now feel inspired to locate my prior offenses and type them up (they were all painstakingly handwritten). I doubt I'll foist them on the unsuspecting public, but it will at least give my friend's a good laugh.