Comments | greygirlbeast: Shells for Ships, Dead Horses, La Mer

greygirlbeast

Shells for Ships, Dead Horses, La Mer

Jun 17, 2009 20:51

Since I mentioned it this morning, here's the clip Spooky shot yesterday of me experimenting with the buoyancy of clam shells, filmed near Moonstone, on the stream connecting Trustom and Card ponds.

You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com

Clamshell Boat, Riding the Current from Kathryn Pollnac on Vimeo.
It's starting to look as though my shadow is destined to get a lot more screen time ( Read more... )

nin, fan fic, characterization, the sea, music, writing

Comments 25

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greygirlbeast June 18 2009, 04:52:47 UTC

so I'll just say fuck it.

I say it a hundred times a day.

cucumberseed June 18 2009, 04:46:32 UTC

Why in hell's name did I have to go back and take that silly litmus test? Now I have cavities in my brain.

I'm not sure whether the test applies to the character as introduced or as the character ends up, or if

No. Full stop. Not wasting any more time on this. I suspect that the most common denominator of Suedom is "characters which irritate me," and that's as far as it gets for most people.

greygirlbeast June 18 2009, 04:52:09 UTC

No. Full stop. Not wasting any more time on this. I suspect that the most common denominator of Suedom is "characters which irritate me," and that's as far as it gets for most people.

Exactly. Keep in mind, many have cited Bella and Anita Blake as "mainstream" Mary Sues. And yet. These are characters who are wildly popular, who have made fortunes for their authors. Clearly, those who loathe them are in the majority. And we end up back at the issue of subjectivity and the uselessness of this term. Teaching people not to write "Mary Sues" could easily be equated with teaching them not to write characters who will be wildly popular. Yes, absurdist terminology spawns absurdist arguments. And vice versa.

ardiril June 18 2009, 05:15:39 UTC

Off-topic observation: I may never read anything from the Twilight series, but the graphic design of those dust covers is first-rate.

greygirlbeast June 18 2009, 05:19:30 UTC

I may never read anything from the Twilight series, but the graphic design of those dust covers is first-rate.

Very reluctantly, I do agree. And it's far too late for me to get started on the marketing tirade...

ardiril June 18 2009, 05:24:12 UTC

A marketing tirade from your POV? I can only hope that I live long enough to see that day.

opalexian June 18 2009, 10:24:18 UTC

OHMAN it's not a NIN album without 'Nothing can stop me now', that and that piano chord progression....you know which one, the one at the end of Closer.

But dammit, now I can say it IN FRENCH.

jtglover June 18 2009, 10:26:05 UTC

I agree with much of what robyn_ma says above. "Mary Sue" is one of a number of ideas that seem to have leaked out of fan fiction and entered the general discourse about writing, at least in F/SF. I don't think this is an amateur vs. professional distinction, but a "writing unto itself" vs. "writing solely in relation to other creative worlds" distinction. Agree wholeheartedly with you that the questions asked to determine Mary Sue/Gary Stu-itude have almost no bearing on what is or isn't good fiction. The worlds inhabited by fan fiction authors, however, could not exist without the work of the original author, and perhaps in that context these kinds of rules are useful. As you hate it when Night Elves use LOLspeak, recognizing that something is dramatically out of place, I would assume fanfic readers likewise sense something out of place when Agent Maria Sue solves all the crimes in X-Files fanfic that couldn't be solved by Scully and Mulder, who stand around and go "ooh, aaah ( ... )