Bleached Respect
Mary Sue Memory: III
When I usually leave a review, I write about the fanfic and not the author. Sometimes, I leave advice about why an author made the possible mistakes they did. However, I try avoiding calling an author out. But there comes times, when one has to call the writer out. The times that I feel the need to do this, are the ones where the writer shows a lack of respect to not just fans, but also the original creator.
One of the times that this occurred, started off simple enough. The first Mary Sue quality came from the fact that she belonged to the eleventh division. The problem lies in the fact that only one female member of the eleventh exists to fan knowledge. The masculine mentality of the eleventh division dissuades females from joining. No amount of feminism defeats this.
However, the author set her apart from other Eleventh Sues. The other off beat attribute lay in the fact that the author set her age similar to that of Hitsugaya Taicho. So, on top of breaking the canon fact, only one female exists in the eleventh, she also broke the canon detail that only one child exists in this division.
It became more interesting, when the Sue brought up the fact that Kenpachi found her, just like he had with Yachiru. In other words, the Sue usurped the role of a canon character, in what made them special to the fandom. Good writers know, you don't copy other people's stories from the fandom. People think the author lacks creativity when they do this.
The fanfic contained one more Eleventh Sue problem. The Sue somehow obtained the rank of third seat. Yet, every fan knows that rank belongs to Ikkaku. Yet another case, of usurping a canon characters role within canon. The messing with canon facts, went further than just tampering with eleventh division canon.
Her relation to Hitsugaya Taicho, lay not just in age. Toshiro and the Sue as childhood friends added to the mix of problems with the character. The small taicho's incapability to make friends in canon, made this impossible. This fact slips past the minds of quite a few fanfic authors. Give Hitsugaya a childhood friend, his personality changes due to the fact a friend would take away the iciness.
Yet none of these, were what I called the writer out, for being disrespectful. I found the need, to tell her that she was not respecting the original author, Tito Kubo with what she wrote. So, what was it, that pushed me to write something like this. Some of you reading this, may not believe this, unless you have heard previously of such cases.
It started off, by Kenpachi dragging the Sue to the first division meeting hall. There, Yamamoto revealed a law. This law stated, that every so many years, one of the seated females, would have to mate with the seated males of the gotei thirteen. Her goal was to produce a male heir, to continue the lines, and any females would be bonus.
This was what I called her out for. No matter how unjust some of the laws soul society passed were, this one had no honor in it, and goes against the Japanese train of mind. Not to mention, a good deal of shingami wouldn't put up with a female being treated this way. They wouldn't resort to forcing sex on someone, expesilly a minor. We then get to who the OC was going to have relationships with.
One of them was Byakuya. He happened to be a noble, and in need of continuing his family line. However, he had been head over heals in love with his dead wife, and would not try and do anything to dishonor her. There also lies the fact that because people do marry, there is no need for such a law.
The second one, was Ukitake. For one thing, Ukitake would not have a relationship with a woman, due to the fear of passing on his illness to her, and his children. Second, he loves children so much, he wouldn't be willing to touch them that way. Of course, there are some fans who feel this might not be a good thing either. However, she was already getting characters OoC.
A third and fourth were Hitsugaya Toshiro and Abarai Renji. Neither one of them had family lines to continue. Also, while Renji might have interest in sex and girls, the small taicho is still in the prepubescent stages of things. Thus these two get knocked out of the picture. In face, a good deal of other characters would too, simply because it didn't fit into their personality.
Of course, the author expressed their displeasure of me telling them this. They tried telling me too, that they were being as respectful as possible. The story contents were stuck in their head for some time now, and they felt that they needed to get them out. They felt that their idea should stay exactly as they saw it in the first place.
The first thing I brought up, was the fact that in fanfiction, you are supposed to change your ideas to fit the fandom, not change the fandom to fit the idea. Truth of the matter is, when you do the latter, you've failed as a writer, as you are using wish fulfillment, rather then logical thinking, to make your story work. (I have seen similar stories, that were far better thought out, and still respectful.)
Of course, I brought up another point. I flat out told her, it was fine to write whatever she wanted. However, before she posted it, she needed to stop and think, if the fandom creator were to come and read this fanfic, would they be flattered, or would they be insulted. I told her, if it is the latter of the two, she needed to expect that readers would call her out for it.
Her response was to delete the fanfic, and call me a flamer, because she felt that I had told her what to write or not write. I never once told her she couldn't write that story. What I told her was, it probably wasn't one that she would want to share with the world, and that a lot of people would be in arms about it... unless they were a rabid fan looking for a drool fest.
Actually, I've reviewed one other fanfic of hers, another wish fulfillment, a Byakuya/Oc fanfic. She actually deleted the fanfic because the faults were pointed out. And this one, was no where near as bad as this one.