Subject: Evidence, please?
Author:
Posted on: 2016-08-03 06:13:00 UTC
Which link is it? When has our community demonstrated that we break point 4? At what point has Aragorn demonstrated behavior consistent with the description of 'entitled twerp with a broom up his back passage'?
I'm just gonna repost a rant from tumblr here and hope people listen. The stuff referred to is specific to the G1 Transformers Fandom on Ao3, but it holds true pretty universally. The original poster is LadyDragon76 on Tumblr and Ao3.
"I got stuff to get done so I’m gonna bang this out fast, please ignore any typos, but in light of that truly SAD nonsense on Ao3, I need all my babes and lovelies, friends, associates, and ships in the night in this fandom to know how much I ADORE and appreciate your imaginations.
First point. Mary Sues are IMPORTANT. Do I want to read other people’s any more at my age? In general no. But lovelings. WRITE your Mary Sues, WRITE your self-inserts, LIVE your fantasies through your fiction. PLEASE never stop. It doesn’t matter if I want to read it, someone will. Someone will LOVE it. YOU will touch someone’s heart and soul, and GUESS WHAT. I’m the writer I am today because I wrote a Mary Sue and people cheered me on and begged for more. WRITE!
Second point, also a direct response to that post. Mermaid and Humanization tropes ARE canon in Tranformers. WRITE them. Some of the most creative character pieces I’ve ever seen were humanized fics. (and I don’t just mean my own, though I am proud of that baby) Please never stop.
G1 Seaspray became a merman. G1 Roddy, Springer and Arcee became human. It’s Canon, and even if it wasn’t, screw that jerk and all who share the view that we can’t unleash our imaginations in any and every direction we want to. What unhappy toads such people must be to attempt to place rules and demands on the creative, derivative side of fandom. Please creators, NEVER STOP.
Normally I would say don’t feed the trolls, but in this case I wanted to speak up. Nothing in that sad post hurt me, but I KNOW how those kinds of things can hurt others, and I want any of you who were hurt by it to hear me now, if I may be so egotistical as to offer advice unasked for:
Our fandom NEEDS ALL the crazy AUs we have. Give me your humanized, your mers, your mary sues, you bugs, your harpies, your high school, your coffee shop, your war never happened, your EVERYTHING. Give it to me in fic, in art, in meta, in crafts, in photocomics. Give me impossible ships and the obvious ones. Give me plot and give me pointless rambling fluff. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER STOP. Because the random entitled dipwit that actually believes they have the right to try to tell us what we’re ALLOWED to create never understood the genius of creative fandom to start with. Don’t let that sort of blind, ignorant idiocy hold you back from sharing your soul with the rest of us. I promise you, typos and bad formatting included, fandom NEEDS every last one of your creations.
NEVER STOP! <3"
Well first of all were not telling you what you can and cannot write, were telling you what you should and should not write. I mean write what you wanna write but don't be offended when someone criticizes it or writes a humerus short story where they judge and kill your OCs. It's just not worth it. General rule is if you post it to the internet, people will critique it. or throw twenty slurs at it.
First off, what gives you the right to tell people what they should and should not write? Apparently the PPC is more Orwellian than we thought. Secondly, really? You're going to tell me you will criticize my writing, while committing several spelling and grammar errors yourself? You seriously need to rethink your approach. Third, let's have another sample from Tumblr wherein a rather famous author, beloved by much of the PPC, or at least the old guard, agrees with someone defending people writing Mary Sues, and says she hates the term. If you search through the notifications, you can also find your vary own VixenMage, one of the aforementioned old guard, agreeing as well.
As for judging and killing OCs, I suppose you're right. After all, that's certainly happened to the PPC a few times, by authors who took umbrage with your activities.
1) Assuming quality writing has an objective facet to it (kinda necessary if you don't want to delve into relativism, in which case you can kindly keep your unimportant subjective opinion to yourself), those who think they know good writing from bad have a right to say "this I find bad, and this good".
Related to that: if you make something public, expect people to express their opinion about it. Not all opinions will be positive. Fact of life, deal with it.
2) PPC missions get beta'd and should be of a fairly high writing standard. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind people to please proofread their posts before they post them here (as per the Constitution).
3) Dunno who that author is, and I don't really care, either. Point is, "Suvian", "Sue" or "Stu" is more than "I don't like this character". The reason missions have charge lists is, in part, to show why the Suvians are being assassinated/exorcised/whatever. I don't see VM in that post's notes, so if you can please point that out?
Aside from what your cohort pointed out about VixenMage's post and the issues with refusing the subjective nature of quality (your response to which, by the way, is incredibly rude), you are right. People are entitled to their opinions yes, but there are two main issues with what you're saying. Firstly, what Midnight Starr proposed wasn't voicing an opinion, it was telling people what they're allowed to do, like some kind of fandom police, which you claim you're not. Secondly, if your opinion is that someone should not be writing, maybe, in the interest of good etiquette, you should probably keep it to yourself.
I'm not a relativist. I assume (and you have to either assume this or not — it's not provable) that "truth" is objective and the same for all subjects. That's why I can say stuff like "quality has an objective facet". "Quality" is distinct from "taste"; for (fiction) writing, it includes things such as "correct SPaG", "does not break suspension of disbelief" and "within reason, keeps characters in-character".
This is distinct from "taste" — "I like this", "I don't like this". A possible reason for either is "quality", but it's not the only reason; you can acknowledge that something is bad (ie of poor quality) but still like it (like the way people enjoy The Room).
As to the whole "opinion" thing — "You shouldn't write X because it's bad" is a valid opinion and something people should hear, especially if their writing is in the public space where others can see it; saying that you should keep such opinions to yourself is akin to telling people not to tell their neighbours not to leave garbage on the sidewalk. Of course, in the interest of good etiquette, you should do so in a polite way.
Saying that something is badly written and making fun of it among your own circle of friends isn't "Fandom Police". "Fandom Police" is harassing artists who draw fanart the way you don't like to the point they try to commit suicide. Did any PPCer ever go to a Suethor and say, "you should stop writing fanfic"? No. Some PPCers do try to leave constructive criticism (to varying degrees of success) but going on and telling people to not write if they can't not write badfic is not what the PPC does. You can't tell people what to think or what to say; you can voice your displeasure yes, explain why things are bad yes, call law enforcement if the situation necessitates it, but you as a random person cannot and should not tell other people what to do.
And one last point: since you're a relativist, why are you even bothering other people by saying that your opinion has any merit? Theirs have just as much.
They did. The second link in their post. "Observations & Frustrations" is the title of VM's blog.
Also, re: point 1, I'm not sure quality writing is objective? People disagree on what makes good writing all the time, and trying to enforce a certain set of rules for "proper English" (beyond "can pass a third grade spelling level) seems to fall under the realm of linguistic prescriptivism, which is not typically a road one wants to go down. That way leads to ultimately throwing out most fandom terms (including "Fandom") because they're "made up" or "improper". (Also if you're not careful, down that path lies dismissing valid dialects, like AAVE and netspeak because they're not "right")
I asked because I don't know anybody's Tumblr handles (because I don't use Tumblr).
Aside from the stuff I said in reply to Suvian, I've another argument for "quality writing is objective", but first I'd like to know, do you think there is an objective thing(s)? If so, can you please provide an example?
Aside from that: you are aware that "can pass a third grade spell-check" is also linguistic prescriptivism, right? You can't eat the cake and leave it whole. Either you do away with standardisation completely (in which case, kajagul greep smarks) or you admit that linguistic prescriptivism is required for a language to be a method of communication.
I think it's sturgeon's law that says 90% is bad. Maybe by going for volume, you'll get the occasional good fic with a bad premise.
It depends on what you find entertaining. Sure, a Mary-Sue could be the star of an interesting read. I can't think of any right now.
Because regardless of the quality of discussion her repeated intrusion may cause, Toroll is still banned, and her posts should be scrubbed on sight.
Going by general behavior, we have no proof this is Toroll, and not just another Tor user. There are plenty of reasons someone making this kind of post may want to hide their identity. Especially considering that in the past some of us (myself included unfortunately) haven't exactly been kind to people who disagreed with us.
I invite you to consider who would want to conceal their IP address from us. Your average Suethor trying to troll? Unlikely - an IP address isn't exactly something that points to a specific person.
To my mind, it's far more likely to be someone who knows we could check their IP address against past posts and find at least a handle from that - that is, someone who has been banned from posting and is circumventing their ban. Therefore, whether or not Suvian is Toroll, I believe that the most likely conclusion is that they are a banned user, and therefore should have their posts removed.
I dunno, I can appreciate their desire to be strongly anonymous even if they aren't a banned user; showing up here to discourse on why we might be terrible people is a risky thing to do, and there are communities on the internet that would take that as an invitation to do lots and lots of harass-y things. Obviously, we don't do such things, because we enjoy a good conversation. But we're a rarity in today's age of doxxing and worse.
A rule is a rule and shouldn't be cast aside because this time the results of its ignorance were good. That way chaos lies.
Of course, it is doubtful that Suvian is actually Toroll, so calling for the Nameless Admin is kinda dubious.
Firstly, there's what I said above; the m.o. is the same, and there's more reason to believe it's a disgruntled ex-PPCer than some random Suethor. Supporting this is the name "Suvian". We're the only community on the web to use that term; otherwise, it's just a name (and anyone using Tor is not going to use their name as their handle).
Secondly, the OP says they "hope people will listen". On its own, that's hardly innocuous, but given the trolling and the Tor, it seems reasonable to believe that it's an attempt to divide the community.
Thirdly, there's the reply to Scapegrace. Rude, accusing without support, and, again, familiarity with PPC terms; all of these are characteristics of Toroll.
In conclusion, I find that it is overwhelmingly likely that "Suvian" is an alias for the person known as Toroll, or is another banned user playing copycat.
But I'm not in charge, so I'll bow to the wisdom of the oldbies.
With Desdendelle: just because a banned user returns with a good post, doesn't make them un-banned. So if (say) ZDimensia showed up with a deeply moving display of her love of a certain canon, the correct response would be for the Nameless Admin to point out that she was banned, and potentially delete the post.
With Seafarer: I think this looks like Toroll. I've only seen one other person use a Tor wossname (assuming they were even a different person at all), and the general behaviour looks Toroll-y.
But I also agree with Sergio: since there's disagreement as to whether it is Toroll, and since the response has basically made any trolling attempt a failure, I think it should be left up unless something else happens.
hS
There's the fact that when people started having interesting and thoughtful discussion about what "Suvian" brought up, they disappeared.
While of course there can be many reasons why they didn't check up the Board, that would also be what a troll would do when it is clear that the trolling attempt backfired spectacularly.
I suggest keeping the whole discussion anyways - if "Suvian" was sincere into linking us that post, we have no right to erase it.
If "Suvian" was being a troll, keeping their failure ('cause not only there was pretty much no chaos, we appreciated the food for thought and interesting discussion they gave us!) public is the most delicius way to remind them that trolling here is... well, rather pointless.
I firmly believe that everyone has a right to create what they love.
That includes me.
You have a perfect right to create and share your Mary Sue. I have a perfect right to create and share my narrative critique.
To quote LadyDragon76 from her response to flyingcondors: "You, me, Jimbob over there, and Skippy nextdoor have no right to say what ANY person can write about. ... It MUST be a free for all, or it is nothing."
If fandom needs everything, it needs the PPC, too.
~Neshomeh
Yes, Mary Sues are a vital part of growing into writing. Self-inserts, over-the-top powers, being speshul and/or tragically misunderstood… all start one on the path to writing well, if they don't linger overlong on the bad parts.
Half the PPC's role is to do the same thing, only comically. If you really, really look closely at PPC agents, what do you see but toned-down self-inserts with powers they shouldn't, played for laughs? There's a reason we all enjoy hS's dark histories so much - the idea of a war between two sentient races, one "Agents" and the other "Sues," is clearly a pretty dark one. We play it for laughs, but it's cathartic to see the parallels pointed out from time to time.
The PPC basically also write Sues, just differently. I don't see our role as "eradicate bad writing," but "make people laugh at the ridiculosity of fandom."
I don't personally conflate self-insert with Mary Sue. Not all self-inserts are Sues, and not all Sues are self-inserts. Neither do I think characters with common Suvian traits, e.g. having powers, being tragic, etc., are ALWAYS Sues.
Rather, I think Sues are a symptom of bad writing, which is why they can pop up in original fiction just as much as they can in fanfiction. All those Sueish traits can be used well with proper characterization and storytelling, and a self-insert can be written realistically, with humility and good humor. When the same traits are used as cheap tickets to audience investment, and when the self-insert is just a way for the author to stroke their own ego, THEN you get a Sue.
I know there have been a few rather sparkly agents here and there over the years, but since the PPC strives to write well as much as it strives to be entertaining, I do believe that keeps the number of Sue agents down.
(And, y'know, I don't think any of my agents are Sues. Feel free to tell me if you disagree—I'd love to hear how I can improve!)
~Neshomeh
Sues are, essentially, bad writing. But everything that makes them Sues can be done well. That's essentially what July tried to do with St Dymphna's, and it went well enough (mostly).
But that's more or less what I mean. The PPC takes many of the elements of Sue-ness and makes them work, often (but not always) through satire. I think fandom would be poorer without Sues, without people writing over-the-top Speshul characters in their writing journeys (though, I will say I could do with …fewer, perhaps), but I also think fandom would be poorer without the writers who specialize in laughing at themselves each other and their fandom. Not just the PPC, but all satire. All Sue-and-bad slash-and-bad crossover-joking stories.
And, as has been said before, we're not here to -eradicate- that badfic. We're here to make ourselves and each other laugh.
What the PPC does isn't bash escapist fantasies - I've seen a Tumblr post claiming as such, and I disagree with that particular notion. Escapist fantasies ARE a critical step in the writing process, and OCs of any kind are, too, Suvian or otherwise. In many cases, the Suvian in question COULD be better written, they just needed the right kind of feedback to improve upon their characterization and how they fit into the world in question.
That being said, we primarily deal with badfic that's written terribly when the author is at the experience level where they SHOULD know better. Characters who are grossly overpowered in an upstart author's first fanfic are one thing; characters who are still grossly overpowered even after several years of writing fanfiction for a particular fandom or community are a different matter entirely. I guess it's true that Mary Sues are the most common first step in the process towards becoming a better writer, but it's also true that we need concrit like the PPC delivers to move forward.
And here's the most important part. Constructive criticism is just as vital as the presented work itself. If people just heap loads of praise on a badly-written character without thinking about how they fit into the lore or world they're supposed to be a part of, the character will never be able to grow out of said bad writing. If we ignore the mistakes the writer has made, said writer won't realize what they're doing wrong and continue following the misguided path they're on. So yes, creating a Suvian character is perfectly fine. But so is accepting feedback that could go a long way towards improving said character and making them more consistent with canon, or better written in general.
In short, I both agree and disagree with the OP here. I don't know who they are, and what they're doing here, but while I respect that they make a valid point, I feel that they should've known what they were talking about before quoting a Tumblr post of all things. An added discussion of the post in question clarifying or countering some of its points would've made it a lot more palatable.
I should also add that in many cases, the fics sporked by the PPC are badly written in a truly horrible or hilarious manner. We've dealt with mediocre fics before, and we've felt that they're decent enough albeit in need of a little extra effort on the part of the author. But if your fic has Indiana Jones gain the ability to fly, without any sensible canon explanation, by shoving an MacGuffin up his butthole (yes, I went there), then you have no excuse.
Let's not go confusing PPC missions with actual constructive criticism. Missions are for us and for people who come to us ready to learn from others' mistakes, not for the authors. I mean, I'd like to think that my missions are written with enough love at heart that the authors could learn from them, maybe even enjoy them with sufficient distance, but it's still not the most tactful way to give anyone feedback on their work. Anyone going around telling people their stories have been sporked do not have the authors' best interests at heart, believe me.
~Neshomeh
Now that I actually feel competent writing this, here's my thoughts.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinions. I thank you for your input. I believe that we can always learn something new from the thoughts of others, and that at the very least, I'll try to do that. You've given us another point of view, and people can always take something away from that. There's pieces that you like, and pieces that you don't like. To my knowledge, this isn't a hate group, where we just go into fanfiction to kill characters that we don't like, though possibly some people within and outside our community think so. Personally, I have not seen elements of the former. True, imagination is an excellent thing, but sometimes, it can be perverted, like when the Imagination Nexus became the Maelstrom. That parable is a lighter and softer version of what I think is actually happening, however. There are very depraved things happening in fanfiction sometimes. Now, the previous statement is very much YMMV. My concept of depravity could be very different from yours. For example, some people think torture is a beautiful art, but I think it's despicable. It's all a matter of what floats your boat. This community is about preventing bad writing, and having fun while we're at it. The thing is, bad writing is objective, just like whether the death penalty is wrong or not. Of course, someone's going to argue against my point. I should be fine with that, because everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
If you have read this, thank you for listening to my thoughts.
TL;DR: "Freedom is the Right of all Sentient Beings" can be interpreted in many ways, because "Freedom" is a wild card.
The vast majority of fanfiction contains Sues in one way or another, so the character type's association with bad writing was unavoidable. Sues are symptoms of bad writing, but bad writing itself, and bad writing in general, are what the PPC community addresses in missions. A disproportionate amount of missions involve Sues because, again, that's the shape of fanfiction. But missions are more about pointing out what works vs. what doesn't work in the story.
But, of course, the real topic here isn't Sues themselves, but whether writing them is "okay" for authors. And quite honestly, that argument is irrelevant in this community; we don't inform badfic authors of missions into their stories, and we certainly don't attempt to dissuade anyone from writing anything. Missions exist only as part of the fictional setting of PPC HQ. If a fanfiction renaissance ripped across the internet overnight tonight, and fanfiction quality took a huge upturn, I myself (and probably many other writers in this community) would craft artificial badfics to send my agents into, as a backdrop to my own continuing plot lines. The badfics aren't the point; the points are our characters' growth under strain, our intertextual cooperation between authors in our community to build stronger stories and a stronger setting, and our ability to find humor in bizarre moments we came across when looking at fanfiction on the internet.
Now, for some thoughts that are more distinctly my own than the general community attitudes above. Firstly, in the original post, ladydragon76 mentions, "I promise you, typos and bad formatting included, fandom NEEDS every last one of your creations." Learning correct spelling, punctuation and formatting (and, most of all, learning to DOUBLE-CHECK one's work—I've made numerous typos so far in this post, but I backspaced and corrected them immediately after I saw them) are important in real life, not just in fun writing. I frequently get texts or written notes from coworkers filled with chatspeak, abbreviations, typos and incorrect grammar that confuse me and slow down my ability to respond or carry out instructions. It's imperative that all young people growing up now learn correct writing format in order to communicate effectively in their future careers. Learning those tools, and putting them to good use in fanfiction, will only help them down the road. Disregarding the rules of writing only teaches bad habits they will need to unlearn as adults.
Secondly, while writing fanfiction is fun, I personally wouldn't bother with it if I wasn't going to put my every greatest effort into it, and make the final product as perfect and professional as I could. To put it more generally, there's no point in doing something if I'm not going to do it right. As an admin on our wiki, and one of our active members working to make backup copies of older works for future rehosting, I treat my PPC hobby with as much careful attention to detail as I do my actual, paying career. This is because, while I do them for "fun" (or at least, working on them and being able to show quality results makes me feel accomplished and valuable), "fun" does not mean shoddy or quick work, but rather complete, professional efforts I can be proud of. I see no reason to expect any less from anyone else.
—doctorlit, letting his philosophy show a bit
That hadn't occurred to me. These posts seem to be motivated very differently. Suvian is identifying themself with a consistent username, and appears to be trying to convince us we are wrong rather than trying to incite chaos the way Toroll did. They appear to be attempting civil debate and logic, rather than merely cackling like a villain in a children's movie. If this is Toroll, they've changed a lot. I think they're a different person. It might be worth it to engage with this one; I think there's a chance they could be assimilated persuaded of our cause.
--Key has seen troll-like people convinced before
I mean, civil debate and logic might be a bit of a stretch, considering that Suvian McSue O'Suely, daughter of Sue's only argument and response so far has had essentially no substance, other than a (to my mind, at least) fairly on-attack tone.
I mean, look at that 'your comrade,' 'your community,' (putting us all in together in the big team against them) and the totally irrelevant 'Well, Aragorn is a wanker!' (the opinion's acceptable, though its delivery seems a tad inflammatory,) along with the sardonic subject title and the riposte to point five being nothing but a thinly veiled insult using our own terminology (I could have made a very witty attack on Suvian McGonagall, there, but I didn't.)
It's certainly not moustache-curling 'Mwahaha, I laugh as you tear each other apart!' but it hardly seems logical, or inviting of debate.
Just strikes me as someone stirring things up. And if they're trying not to, they're doing a rubbish job of it.
--Larfen, who has infinitely less experience than Key and probably has no right to get involved, here.
---
Right, now that the sarcasm's out of the way, have a measured response to your points that's largely in line with the FAQ
1) Writing Mary Sues is not an important step. It's a largely unavoidable one. A Mary Sue character, according to the definition we use here, is one that makes the entire story about themselves, being the centre of attention, and twisting the universe of the original work and the characters within it purely to sate the author's fantasies. A Mary Sue is a character you should try and avoid writing, and while it's good practice to learn from your mistakes, LD76 saying they're the author they are today because of all the Mary Sues they wrote is like me saying I'm a good pinball machine repairwoman because of all the times I screwed up some simple wiring jobs and made a valuable mid-'60s Gotty start belching smoke from its motor board.
2) AUs are not inherently bad things. In fact, the PPC is in favour of good AU stories! Our general ethos is less about rigid canon compliance and more about what Huinesoron of this parish terms canon-friendliness. Put it like this: if you're writing an interesting AU in which the Lord of the Rings is crossed over with, ooh, I dunno, Mass Effect or something, and everyone's in character and acting like the people they are in the source material, then we don't have a problem with it and will indeed praise it to the skies. Conversely, if you get a lot of trivia right but Aragorn wanders around acting like an entitled twerp with a broom up his back passage, then we are going to have a problem with it.
3) So lots of people like your terrible Mary Sue fanfiction. If I may be blunt, so what? Lots of people like Burger King food, myself included. That doesn't make it healthy. Like I said above, writing Suefic is largely unavoidable when you're starting out; you just learn how not to do it and write better OCs and have a better grasp of the canon characters and how they operate. That doesn't make writing Suvian characters good.
4) There are doubtless some people out there who view themselves as fandom police, and these people are rightly viewed as really, really strange. We are not those people. It's SOP around here not to tell badfic authors that the PPC has sporked their work, nor do we leave nasty comments. The PPC is, at heart, an organization dedicated to crafting constructive criticism in a way that at least tries to be funny. Neshomeh's missions are a great example of this if you want to check them out.
5) Since there is no chance in hell of you having read this far, happy happy boom boom swamp swamp swamp. =]
6) There is no point six.
Your comrade has posted a link that pretty accurately discredits points 1 and 3. Your community's own behavior discredits point 4, and as for poit 2, isn't Aragorn's usual behavior "entitled twerp with a broom up his back passage"? Unfortunately for you, plot holes are purely a thing of fiction and therefore trying to trick the universe with point 5 is not likely to work.
Which link is it? When has our community demonstrated that we break point 4? At what point has Aragorn demonstrated behavior consistent with the description of 'entitled twerp with a broom up his back passage'?
My points referred to our community's conduct - a community, incidentally, of which Tumblr user flyingcondors does not appear to be a part. I am more than welcome to be proven wrong on this, so if you're reading, do say hello. We are not responsible for the actions of those outside our group, and if you do have a problem with specific Boarders or people claiming to be a part of the PPC then I strongly urge you to name and shame. We are not a harassment organization, and we take that extremely seriously.
Problem is, you aren't arguing in good faith. At all. Nothing you've said in the post to which I am replying has the slightest basis in fact. You are not arguing in good faith, so there's really no point in responding to you further.
I disagree, to a point, but in the interest of providing full context to those wondering what's going on, look here and look up Alex Anaheim's "open letter to the fandom". I lost the link unfortunately, but basically the dude was being extremely rude and ranted about how AUs and Mary Sues were "ruining the fandom" (Which, for those not in the TF fandom, let me tell you it's been "ruined" by everything from Beast Wars to fans writing official comics) and how if he saw one more he would gouge his eyes out.
I expect this was posted here because honestly his attitude echoed somee of the same ones that have been put on display here. Apparently I was wrong when I told PC he was overestimating how little people care about us.