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littlesunshinelily — 'erm a mary sue to me is-' SHUT UP
Published: 2019-10-13 06:07:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 1243; Favourites: 33; Downloads: 1
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Description
most people's definition of "mary sue" can be brought down to one of the following:- "i'm a straight fujoshi and i need [FEMALE CHARACTER] to get out of the way of my precious hot yaoiz so i'm gonna say she's a mary sue for existing" (eg. Kairi from Kingdom Hearts)
- "i'm a misogynistic asshole who's upset when The Females get to have a role that isn't fridged mom, damsel in distress, or femme fatale villain, so i'm going to accuse [FEMALE CHARACTER] of being a mary sue and rant on youtube for 20 minutes about it" (eg. Rey from Star Wars)
- "[FEMALE CHARACTER] is poorly written, but rather than actually dissect the problems and label them accordingly so authors know things they need to work on, i'm gonna call her a mary sue and tell authors to avoid her traits because it's easier for me" (eg. also Rey from Star Wars)
- "i just need to justify my hatred of this female character so i'm gonna call her a mary sue" (eg. any female oc on this website that's not a cishet white bookworm girl with brown or black hair and the personality of a plastic spoon)
you only ever bring up gary stus/marty stus/barry stus/SERIOUSLY THERE'S LIKE 30 MALE NAMES FOR THE REVERSE TROPE THAT NOBODY CAN AGREE ON when people point out how misogynistic it is to keep labelling any female character who isn't a doormat as a mary sue.
it's a term that targets female characters directly (and usually female characters of authors that are minors and just trying to have some fucking fun rather than write the next Great Gatsby), is too broad of a criticism to be of any use to authors to improve their characters, and is far too subjective for the same reason. there's a reason mary sue isn't seen as legitimate criticism in academia despite being a term that's existed for four fucking decades.
"Jennifer Cactuswash is a mary sue" tells me jackshit about what i need to work on.
"Jennifer Cactuswash solved the problem of the 30-zombie invasion far too easily despite the fact she had no gun training in Chapter 3" gives me an exact problem that I need to look at and work on and by that point the "she's a mary sue" comment is completely fucking redundant.
and no, my ocs have never been called mary sues; in fact i've scored higher for myself on those litmus tests than my ocs have.
leaving the comments open for shit-tier clowns to honk their horns, if it fails to amuse the high clown mighty aeris, they will be closed
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Comments: 21
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The term " Mary Sue" seems like fandom discourse instead of actual criticism when it comes to writing fictional characters.
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it literally is; i've been learning about literature in university for the best part of 4 years, and excelled in it during English classes at school.
not once has the term Mary Sue popped up in academic literary criticism; the term is either too vague to accurately describe issues or becomes redundant once you actually mention the problem.
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It's only a thing for fandom discussions. Writers don't really use Mary Sue as a real term.
Also writers will give you advice on how to make your characters more likable and less perfect in the story narrative but fans will see a fictional character with a magical power or love interest and complain that they're too overpowered even when the story isn't based on real life.
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MISONIGITICICCCCC FOOOR CALLINGGGG A BAD CHARACTERR WHO WAS INSERTED LIKE A FUCKING OC, A MARY SUEEE
BROOOOOO
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it is interesting that you managed to have enough reading comprehension to realise i was calling out people who accuse female characters of being mary sues as being misogynistics, but not the reading comprehension required to read this bit:
[Mary Sue] is too broad of a criticism to be of any use to authors to improve their characters, and is far too subjective for the same reason. there's a reason mary sue isn't seen as legitimate criticism in academia despite being a term that's existed for four fucking decades.
"Jennifer Cactuswash is a mary sue" tells me jackshit about what i need to work on.
"Jennifer Cactuswash solved the problem of the 30-zombie invasion far too easily despite the fact she had no gun training in Chapter 3" gives me an exact problem that I need to look at and work on and by that point the "she's a mary sue" comment is completely fucking redundant.
it's like you saw me say that accusations aimed towards solely female characters of being a Mary Sue while taking a fiver from a male character and looking the other way from his power fantasy might be rooted in misogyny and went into a bloodshot rage that prevented you from reading the rest of it.
there's also the fact that Mary Sue is an undeniably feminine name and gets thrown around for female characters far more often and rather than having a strictly male term, we have several "male counterparts" implying that a Mary Sue, and hence a female, is the default setting for this criticism.
i would be interested in knowing exactly what character you have in mind when you're raging like a gorilla with rabies, and why you think they're a bad character or inserted like an OC (though if that's your criticism, i have something to tell you about all of literature and fiction and the characters therein).
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I would like to mention that, you forget there is a male name for mary sues. A gary stue or lary sue.
Also if you do read the defintion of both terms, including the ones I mentioned here.
>A perfect character with little to no weaknesses or blessed with random powers because plot says so without any explanation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue
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Wow. You know, ignoring what I say doesn't suddenly make your argument more compelling.
I would like to mention that, you forget there is a male name for mary sues. A gary stue or lary sue.
Actually, I didn't forget. The comment you replied to points out there are male counterparts for Mary Sues:
there's also the fact that Mary Sue is an undeniably feminine name and gets thrown around for female characters far more often and rather than having a strictly male term, we have several "male counterparts" implying that a Mary Sue, and hence a female, is the default setting for this criticism.
As well as the description:
you only ever bring up gary stus/marty stus/barry stus/SERIOUSLY THERE'S LIKE 30 MALE NAMES FOR THE REVERSE TROPE THAT NOBODY CAN AGREE ON when people point out how misogynistic it is to keep labelling any female character who isn't a doormat as a mary sue.
which funnily enough, you did bring up the male counterparts of after I called it misogynistic and acted like it was your massive checkmate. As well as added yet another title to the pile that there's several male versions of the term, which implies it's not a default - even though you would assume there's far more male Mary Sues than female ones just by virtue of there being a shitton more male characters in media.
Oh gosh, you linked me Wikipedia; I'm pretty sure that means I hit mansplain bingo, because how uneducated do you think I am that you have to link the springboard?
The definition you provided, A. shut up, and B. isn't even the same as the one in the Wikipedia article or even paraphrased.
A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character . Typically, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment .
Says nothing about being blessed with random powers because plot says so without any explanation, as well as either the work of a child trying to have fun with their writing before they have to worry about shit like explaining everything about their OC or finetuning every aspect of their character to be sure that she isn't "too powerful".
As I said; Mary Sue is useless in actual literary criticism outside of angry YouTubers and DeviantART users, and doesn't really come into play in an academic environment, because it's such a broad and vague term that it could mean any number of problems and doesn't get into any specifics about what needs to be worked on; the original Mary Sue and Ebony Dark'Ness Dementia Raven Way both have severely different problems with their characters, but both can be swept under the rug of Mary Sue and called a day.
I'll also mention a personal favourite character of mine, Kirumi Tojo from Danganronpa v3. She fits the "perfect character with little to no weaknesses" type; she's incredibly smart, incredibly athletic, incredibly beautiful, her talent for being a maid is almost supernatural, most characters describe her as amazing; her one in-text weakness is her inability to cut konjac properly. By all accounts, she'd fit both definitions of being a Mary Sue. Yet I've never seen anyone call Kirumi a Mary Sue, and it's not because the Danganronpa fandom's moved beyond the Mary Sue accusations; Chiaki Nanami got a ton of those.
It's almost like making a "perfect" character can still work depending on the role they're given in the universe and if their flaws are in the subtext rather than in the actual text, and once again, the Mary Sue definition is totally meaningless outside of informal fandom discourse.
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Not really.
For a character to not be a mary sue, they have to gain the abilities in the text/context of the story, explain where they came from, instead of coming from thin air.
That's the most important part.
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Except there isn't an explanation as to where those talents came from outside of the meta reason, and nobody really gives a shit about where abilities and shit came from in the Danganronpa universe.
The important part is that Mary Sue is at best a redundant and broad criticism made by critics who only have the vaguest idea of what they're talking about, and at worst, a reason to despise a female character showing any more than a little competency at a certain skill.
There is a certain irony about you seeing the title and not being able to follow directions. I thought following directions was incredibly important for military personnel and their bootlickers?
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you killed him
hes dead
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indeed
press f to pay respects
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You seem to confuse me as someone who is part of the military.
I'm just a fella who likes history and fictional alternate timelines.
To the point where I've created my own universes and such.
Also who said I lick the boots of the military? I don't exactly like the US military's current stance on interventionism.
Hoping that Trump can perhaps change that.
But who knows. He fights for Israel's money.
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The fact you revolved your entire comment about the offhanded comment I made regarding the entire contents of your gallery kind of proves that you know you don't have a rebuttal to anything I've actually said.
But thanks for revealing your true colours, I was kind of barely listening to you before, but now I know I'm talking with a Trump supporter, I know there's absolutely no reason for me to listen to your inane ramblings.
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you and i? irl mary sue/irl mary sue solidarity
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