don't sue mary-sue

Begun November 2007 when procrastinating for NaNo, fleshed out July 2008
Yes, I am over eighteen and I fanfic (read/occasionally write). Don’t sue me.

I also think you shouldn’t sue the Mary-Sue writers either.

Firstly, in their defence, a lot of them haven’t reached their teens, and most are probably innocent children living out their harmless fantasies. What little girl didn’t dream she was a princess, a popstar, a mermaid, a model or all four? I suppose in the past decade, the fashions have changed – it’s trendy to be a vampire, black hair is more beautiful than blonde hair, Draco Malfoy is the new Prince Charming…they’re not trying to write Pulitzer-material, they’re just experimenting. And I would rather have my kids experimenting with words than intravenous drugs. No matter how rubbishy their writing is, it’s not likely to hurt them when they revisit it several years later and realise how awful it was (on the contrary, they’re likely to laugh, if they have any kind of maturity.)

My second point, I feel, is far more pressing.

Why are we so quick to look at a character and scream, “PERFECT HAIR! MARY-SUE!” when we will happily swoon over bronze-haired, pale-skinned Adonises like Edward Cullen? Or if he’s not your taste, Gellert Grindelwald, with his golden hair and “merry” face (a la Dorian Grey, methinks). Or, if the psychopathic boys don’t tickle your fancy (and because good things come in threes), just watch any movie featuring Hugh Grant and you’ll eventually find a male Mary-Sue equivalent.

I know there is a term for male Mary-Sues. The “Gary-Stu”. But how often do we use this? In the Harry Potter fandom, for example (which I mostly inhabit), every female canon character, from Ginny Weasley to Cho Chang to Fleur Delacour, has been dubbed a Sue at one point. The evidence people use – Ginny gets all the boys, Cho wallows in angst (“wangts”), Fleur is pretty – can best be described as dodgy. But in all my years of fandom, I have never heard someone cry “Gary-Stu” at any male canon character. Why?

I think it’s a reflection on who reads and comments and forms opinions on fanfiction. It’s the girls. The girls who have grown to love the male canon characters and would lay down their lives for them, or alternatively, who would sink their nails into the hearts of any romantic competition. I did this once – I fancied myself Cho’s Chang younger sister, so that when Cho and Harry went out and inevitably broke up, I would snatch him for my own evil designs. Many girls are going to hate poor Ginny’s guts simply because she married the man in the end. I have heard tirades about Astoria Greengrass, who never even appears in the books – “Waaah! Stupid JKR just pulled a name out of thin air!” Well – sorry to bust your self-righteous bubbles, but I suspect you’re just mad that JKR didn’t pull your name out of thin air.

Moreover, it’s a fact of life that girls are going to be slightly more critical of their own kind than of another species. Particularly at a time when boyfriends are the latest must-have status items. (I’m allowed to say this – sadly, I’ve been there, and done that.)

It’s an animal instinct, jealousy.

The main difference I discovered between boys and girls in high school was that the girls could get jealous, competitive and just plain bitchy. Boys seem to have shorter, less malicious, fuses, which has always made them incredibly endearing creatures to me (and still does, even if I identify as queer these days). Tall Poppy Syndrome is more rampant among girls, most of whom are trying desperately to fit in with some crowd or another (Posh Tottys, Chavs, Emos, Geeks, you name it, yes I have seen St Trinian’s…)

Being the medical student I am, I managed to boil it down to biological terms.

Once upon a time, in the animal kingdom, women realised that if they got pregnant, their life would be put on hold for several months. They could only bear one offspring at a time, whereas men could father several at once. In Darwinian terms, “survival of the fittest” means that both men and women are trying to mate and produce the best genetic outcome possible by combining with a favourable partner. Now men can just go around, depositing their germ cells in several women, and hope that at least one of them will provide a good genetic “other half”. But women get only one chance, which makes them bitchy and competitive and willing to fight other girls for the chance to exchange genetic material with a top-quality man.

Well, in my hypothetical-primordial brain it makes sense.

Now, where were we? Mary-Sues? Well now that I have proved that it’s just animal instinct that makes us attack these female original characters, you now have 2 options. Firstly, we can be mature, overcome our animal instincts (because we’re humans, after all, and we have the capacity to), and refrain from abusing young, female creators of self-inserts. Secondly, we can go for consistency, and extend our web of hatred to include beautified Draco Malfoys, impossible male OCs (especially those in slash fics) and EDWARD CULLEN.

Anti-Twillight rant coming soon.

single and fabulous

Should the magazine cover read "Single and Fabulous?", or "Single and FABULOUS!"?

(If you get the Sex and the City reference, you rule.)
God, I want to go to NYC one day...

Anyway, this topic recently came to my attention because over the past few weeks, I have been surrounded by people having relationship problems. Half a dozen of my good friends have broken up with their significant others, and if I have to listen to another single person whinge about how they are sick of singledom, I will throw my double-pointed knitting needles at them. And so when someone bemoaned the fact they had "never been kissed" on a forum which I occasionally visit (occasionally because most of the denziens are younger than me) I felt compelled to answer thus:

"Excuse me, but I'd like to add my two cents, since I'm nineteen and a half, and I have never been kissed. Although there are moments where curiosity gets the better of me, most of the time I'm reasonably comfortable with my status.

Kissing doesn't mean ANYTHING unless it's in context. If you're not sharing a kiss with someone you have feelings for, it's no more meaningful than snogging a pillow.

I had a brief encounter with a guy in high school (he asked me to his prom) but there was absolutely no chemistry between us, and I'm extremely relieved that we never kissed. It would have spoilt a lot for us both.

In short: there is NOTHING wrong with you. You just haven't met the right person yet - and only time can "fix" that.

And if it helps, I've been told by a lot of my friends who are in relationships that kissing is extremely overrated. People don't see stars, time doesn't stop, and you can get EBV.*"

*EBV = Epstein-Barr Virus, otherwise known as Glandular Fever or Infectious Mononucleosis or just "Mono" or "The Kissing Disease". It's nasty.

Shortly after, on another set of forums, the same ridiculous topic came to my attention. And guess what I said to this girl? I was slightly more eloquent because I planned what I was going to say this time.

"At the end of this year, I will be 20. I have never had a steady significant other, unless you count the boy who asked me to his prom as a "boyfriend". I certainly don't - going to his prom was a mistake because there was no chemistry whatsoever between us. I would be lying if I said my singledom doesn't bother me sometimes (usually it's in conjunction with my parents being snotty and not allowing me to go out at night without a male chaperone, or with my girl mates celebrating their anniversaries) but on the whole I'm quite happy with it.

To put it simply - single people have problems, but "taken" people have problems too - simply having a partner will not make your life perfect.

Whether your life will benefit from a relationship or not completely depends on an individual's circumstances. For example, I'm probably better off alone at the moment because I value my freedom very highly, I have a ridiculously busy life and barely enough time for my friends as it is, AND I have no idea what I want in a prospective partner (especially when it comes to sex).

But I also recognise that my life is always changing, and one day, the pros will outweigh the cons, and I'll be ready. Perhaps this day will come in a week, perhaps it'll be in a month, perhaps it'll be in a year, perhaps it'll take a decade, or perhaps it'll never come at all because I'll be so satisfied with my life that I won't need that type of connection with someone (priests, nuns and monks live like this, and many of them are very happy people). I'm not going to waste time on stressing about when it'll happen."

Since I really like the number three, here's a conversation between my mother and me for completeness. And because it made me laugh.

Mum: Can you just learn to be more ladylike for once? I don't know if it's because of excitability or hearing loss that you're always so loud, but you're putting the boys off!
Me: Really, now?!! (right now I'm thinking - it's not my addictions, my gullibility, my immaturity, my frigidity, my flat-chestedness, my feminist beliefs, IT'S MY VOLUME. GREAT.)
Mum: Yes! You need to tone down a bit - to stop being - to put it bluntly - a LESBIAN MAGNET!

Er, mum...? What's so wrong with being a lesbian magnet? Especially if you're the type who would very possibly not mind dating a lesbian? And anyway, mum, you sound like a broken record.

Well...here I was, labouring under the illusion that you shouldn't go chasing people, boys or girls, that you ought to wait for the right person to come along, who'll not only tolerate your flaws but love you all the more for them...

Perhaps I'm too idealistic, but this is why I don't buy into the teenage dating game anymore. It is a game. You need strategy, luck and to abide by the rules (it also helps if you're attractive enough to distract your opponent). It's emotionally exhausting. Physically too, if you're unfortunate enough - like one of my male friends who was keen on a girl, and asked her out. The subsequent rejection caused his systolic blood pressure to skyrocket to 160 (normal is 120) and his resting heart rate to shoot up to 105bpm (normal is 70bpm). To add insult to this injury, he now only gets 2-3 hours of sleep a night because he's feeling "utterly ripped up inside".

Ouch.

All because it's a huge blow to your self-esteem.

That's gotta hurt.

I'm not entirely sure what love is, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't come remotely close. I'm sorry, but to me, true love, romantic or platonic, will always have the "unconditional" quality to it. I may only be nineteen, but one of the first lessons I learnt as an adult was that if you truly care for someone and their happiness, you'll let them go.

That, and to me, what separates "love" from "infatuation" is that when you're crushing after someone, you're obsessing over their virtues, their talents, all the GOOD things about them. When you love someone, you look at all their imperfections and you adore that they're kind of scrawny, that their hair is all bushy, that they fall asleep on your shoulder and drool all over your sleeve...

Heck, it doesn't even have to be love for a girl/boyfriend. It's like with knitting. I love the scarf I knitted in ninth grade, in spite of the inconsistent tension, the miscounted stitches, the horrible garter stitch...I love it BECAUSE it's so misshapen and nobody else will wear it but me. (What can I say, we were made for each other. Sorry about the knitting analogies - but it is winter in my part of the world.)

Remember: somewhere, there is someone out there who will fit your jagged edges like a matching piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

By all means, if you want to change something about yourself, go ahead. But it should be you who wants the change, not some good-for-nothing dick who wants a trophy wife.

Being single is not an indication that something is wrong with you, be it your chewed-up nails or your too-high standards. I have said this before in this rant. It's JUST THE TIMING that's wrong. Do I make myself clear?

Maybe you'll tell me I'm being bitter because I'm old, single and ugly and trying to convince myself that my life is worth something. Maybe you'll tell me I'm not qualified to comment on relationship topics. But maybe, just maybe, my little incoherent rant will make you see that "fabulously single" is not an oxymoron. I really hope you do, especially if you're one of my friends, because it'll save me from sitting up until 1am cuddling you, feeding you tissues and saying exactly the same thing - that you are fabulous, just the way you are.

P.S. I can't believe I've had this website for years and haven't written something like this yet, given that I watch Sex and the City not to perve on the men, not to swoon over the fashion, but to listen to an awesome journalist give her candid take on life.

see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

Does the internet need further censorship?

Smut?
No offence to anyone, but most smut in fanfics has never bothered me. I'm not talking about paedophilia, or S&M, or bestiality, or incest, I'm talking about two mature people making a decision to sleep together. And as for things like rape...I guess it is touchy, since it's a matter of how well the author handles it. But ANYWAY I think that if you don't like it, nobody's stopping you from moving to another page.

I mean, if you walk into a bookstore, and pick up a novel, it doesn't come with a "sex scenes here!" warning on it. If you walk into a library, and read a blurb, and you think it interests you, only to find out there's rape in it (eg: Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Mariller, which I read in year 7/8), and you don't like reading it, you just return the book unfinished, or you skim over those parts and enjoy the rest of the novel.

No-one told me, when I was 13, that while Daphne du Maurier's classic Rebecca, although it has a very twisted plot (and some very twisted characters, hello Mrs Danvers!), is rather discreet and subtle (as most 1930s novels would be)...that the sequel by Sally Beauman, Rebecca's Tale, is NOT. And when I picked The Blind Assassin off the "gold star recommendations" shelf in a library, no librarian stopped me from borrowing it, even though it's scandal galore.

No-one told me, when I was 14, that Ian McEwan's Atonement would contain a graphic sex scene, the coarsest swear word in the English language, and a rapist. I also grew up in an all-girls school, so I had no inklings that a boy, only a few years older than me, would have...inklings...of the sort that turned up in Catcher in the Rye. But hey, what do you do when it's on a list of "Classics"?

No-one told me, when I was 15, that Snow Falling on Cedars would not only be a mad murder story, but a really steamy romance. Actually, multiple steamy romances, if I remember correctly, including a shower scene. And no one told me that just because Pharaoah had a historical fiction label, didn't mean the characters couldn't have sex every fifteen pages or so. I had a friend who was the same age, and her favourite book at the time was Lolita, which also shocked me when I got round to reading it.

Perhaps I'm only speaking for a niche crowd who wouldn't be mentally scarred by smut in their early teens, or perhaps you'd argue that I myself have been scarred, and shouldn't be allowed to comment on such matters. I can tell you that my parents were quite strict - they liked to censor things - I wasn't allowed to read Wild Swans when I was eight, even though my grandmother gave it to me. But once I got through Jane Eyre, in about year five or something, I was mostly allowed to read whatever I wanted. Movies were a different matter. You see my mum was under the impression that I wouldn't "get" what was going on if two characters started having sex in a book anyway, whereas when sex and violence in moving pictures is just in-your-face, there's no way of getting around that. And to a great extent I agree with this thinking.

So if a piece of writing on the internet is given an "M" label or an "NC-17", that's better than you'd get in most libraries or bookstores. (Moreover, FFNet have fixed it so that any "M-rated" fics don't appear by default on the front page!)

You usually get "picture books", "junior fiction", "young adult fiction" and "fiction". Once you're past young-adult (and if you've read some John Marsden, you'll realise that teen fiction isn't squeaky-clean), you're into the wilderness. And let me quote Oscar Wilde on this:

"There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice."

So you know, Kayla, I wholly support you if you want to read and write M-rated stuff, because if you're old enough to cope with the original fiction, you're old enough to cope with the fanfiction.

I'm probably sounding horribly postmodern now, but fanfic is art, and art deserves freedom of expression.

I know people say, "but kindergartners could be browsing the site!" But honestly, I'm not too sure if kids under the age of 10 should be given free range over the internet (although my family didn't install the internet until I actually was 10, so maybe I should keep my mouth shut...) I think there's a lot worse things they could come across if they weren't being supervised than a simple fanfic that they probably won't comprehend the meaning of. To me, there's a difference between an explicit piece of writing and an explicit piece of film. In Roald Dahl's Matilda, where a 5-year old girl is reading Dickens and Hemingway and so on...

If I could only remember the exact quote, I would put it here, but essentially it's something like:
Matilda: Mr Hemingway writes about a lot of things I don't understand...especially about men and women...
Librarian: Don't worry. Just enjoy the story, just let the words wash around you, like music...

Essentially, I don't think that if a 5-year-old accidentally stumbles across a piece of adult fiction, that they're going to fully understand what it's about. Most children at the age of five haven't been reading for terribly long - their reading skills would not be strong enough to comprehend a lot of the material on a site like FFNet (I doubt they'd find the M-rated stuff, for starters), and they would get bored and move to a site like Disney.com.

And as I said before, would you let your 5-year-old cross a busy street, let alone roam through "a land of pit and precipice" on her own?

I didn't think so.

In the fourth or fifth grade, my friends and I were all into Tamora Pierce, particularly the Song of the Lioness Quartet, and the later books had mild smut (which I shamelessly plagiarised in one of my "novels" in year seven). We also read David Eddings' stuff, which makes references to whores and things that go bump in the night. And when I look at John Marsden's books, which plenty of people read in primary school (I didn't though) I start to wonder why some people get so hung-up over a few swear words in a K+ fic.

Swearing?
In kindergarten, we had kids dropping words like "crap", "damn" and "shit" in the playground. And don't get me started on John Marsden and ANDY GRIFFITHS. I just remembered Griffiths - look at this sample from his works:

• The Day My Bum Went Psycho (2001)
• Zombie Bums from Uranus (2003)
• Butt Wars (2004)
• Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict (2005)

And he had a poem in one where a boy was jumping on a bed and swearing at his mum entitled something like "Learning to Read, the Andy Way".

I mean if you use "the other c-word" which was what Atonement centred around, then you need to slap an M-rating on that, because it is one really filthy word with awful connotations. Just as if you want to have as much blood as Sweeney Todd, you should put an M-rating on it. Sure, an M-rating might make some 12-year-olds go hunting for forbidden fruit, but if they're looking for it, as I've said, they probably have some idea of what is out there already, AND FURTHERMORE they should accept the consequences of their strayings.

Savagery?

In the film "Our America", two ten-year-olds dangle a five-year-old out of a 9-storey building window to scare him. The five-year-old falls out of their grasp and dies. Their defence is that they didn't mean to kill him. The law does not accept it, because at ten, you are old enough to know that you are taking a risk by dangling someone out of a window.

Similarly, at ten, you are old enough to know that the internet contains material that may be disturbing. It is up to you to respect the locks on the windows to danger. If you don't, no one is going to save you.

And I still firmly maintain my stance that children under ten should only be surfing the net with the guidance of an adult. I'll start with the banner ads of bikini-clad women saying, "HOT BABES OVER HERE" and move onto the "3NLARG3 UR P3N1$" spam mails. Surely a piece of spam advertising such cosmetic surgery with pictures is more traumatic for a kid than someone describing a sex scene which they're unlikely to "get" anyway.

See, I remember when I was seven, I said to mum, "You've Got Mail is a film about two people making love over the internet". I meant "making love" in the sense that they're "falling in love". And in the novel "The Chrysalids" they use "making love" to mean exactly the same thing. A child will read "and then they made love" as two people expressing their affections for each other, nothing else.

Summary?

It's ridiculous how many double-standards there are in the media...jeez, look at advertisements and music video clips these days, some of them are borderline pornographic.

But no, no, no, when it comes to the internet, we have to shield our pre-teens' eyes from everything under the sun!

And here I'm going to address the drug issue. Over half the population of 14-year-olds in Australia consume alcohol at least weekly. More than one in ten Australian teenagers binge drinks every week. Our kids grow up fast, but the internet has turned into our scapegoat in so many ways.

There are seven- and eight-year olds out there who watch hip-hop videos where the female dancers and lyrics leave nearly nothing to the imagination.

But no, we must protect our seven- and eight-year olds from fanfics that leave nearly everything to what your imagination can do with the words on the screen!